


Blood From A Stone

by Ambyrfire



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Casual Sex, Character Development, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – C-PTSD, F/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Politics, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Rating will change, Slow Burn, War, during- and post-ep 24, fixing holes in canon (a lot of them), super slow not-even-there-for-a-while slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:54:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 54,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4626060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambyrfire/pseuds/Ambyrfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>When children live in a world that has taught them to fear falling stars, to find peace is to get blood from a stone.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <em>A miracle.</em></p><p> </p><p>  <em>Impossible.</em></p><p> </p><p>Vers is rotting. Earth will burn. The vultures have begun to circle. </p><p>The story of the third interplanetary war and the lives it changed, again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1.1 | From Zero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update: Saturday, August 29th.

_Previously, on other people’s heartache…_

_7 January 2017._

_“– Two landing castles remain in the Americas, three in Eurasia, and one in middle Africa. Negotiations are continuing, but many experts fear that the conflict may continue, despite the recently drafted Earth-Mars peace treaty–“_

“Uuugh, Nao, can’t you turn that off? It’s not like you won’t get any updates you might need through the military!”

“I am interested in hearing what the general public is being told pertaining to the current situation.” But Inaho reached over and turned off the radio anyway.

“Does it even matter what bullshit they feed the public?” Yuki sank back in her padded armchair, arms folded behind her head. _Change the subject, change the subject_. “Mmm, they sure know how to give the VIP treatment, though!”

“Language, Yuki.” She rolled her eyes. He ignored it. “The differences between the public version of events that the authorities are comfortable sharing and the more accurate version given to those actually engaging in the fighting are telling, both in what they believe to be essential and what they wish to hide.”

 _Damn. Subject change failed_. “It’s not like we can do anything about it, so I don’t see the point in worrying. The higher ups are just going to do whatever the hell they want.” She looked over at him. “You know, we have room service. Don’t get me wrong, I love what you can whip up– but don’t you want to take it easy? We’ve barely been back on Earth a month, and the Deucalion’s still stuck in repairs– you deserve a rest, after everything.”

“This is restful” he replied calmly, sweeping the freshly cut vegetables into the pan.

“Each to their own, then. _I_ intend to just sit here and forget about the fighting. And do little as is humanly possible for as long as I can. Oh! This thing has a massage option!” _I’m not thinking about all that ugly stuff. It's done with, and I’m going to relax if it kills me_ , she thought determinedly, sinking back into the cushions with a long, slightly vibrating sigh.

“Don’t become too used to laziness. We’ll likely be deployed within the week.”

“What? But the war is over! Why would they make us keep fighting?”

“A peace treaty is a step. But it isn’t enough. There are many…” there was a strange stiffness in the set of his shoulders as he paused “unresolved factors. Some of the Orbital Knights have refused to leave the territories they claimed during the war, and Seylum’s control over them is tenuous at best. There are many reasons why they were all so eager to jump to battle, and why the tides of war shifted so sharply and frequently. I believe that the situation on Vers is highly volatile, and Seylum is right at the center. The war has likely done little to change the conditions, both social and political, that initiated the conflict to begin with, and”– he abruptly went silent.

“Yeah?” Yuki prompted. “And…? Nao?” She craned her neck to look at him again– and leapt to her feet. “Nao!”

He was hunched over, right hand gripping white-knuckled at the edge of the counter, left pressed over his eye, and from the way the world slowed it seemed like the half a room between them was a long hallway, that she could run and run and still not be there in time as he slid to the floor–

“Nao, Nao! What’s wrong? Are you okay?” and that was a stupid question to ask, as he murmured something unintelligible, head lolling loosely on his neck as she rolled him onto his back, because _nothing_ about this was okay. “Nao, please, talk to me, stay with me, Nao, please, look at me!” but his head kept rolling away, eyes turning convulsively toward the floor. His face was flushed and shining with sweat, throat working in rhythmic swallowing motions. “Nao!”

 _Okay_ , she thought, _don’t panic, panicking won’t help here. Get a phone, call for help_ –

Inaho spoke. But her surge of relief immediately froze when she heard the flat, empty tone, completely without inflection, the mechanical whirr. “Inaho Kaizuka is experiencing the neurological signaling patterns associated with a complex partial seizure of the temporal lobe. This is likely to progress to a generalized seizure. Contact emergency medical services–” the voice– her brother’s voice, but strange, _wrong_ – cut off as he arched violently off the floor, eyes rolling back in his head.

Yuki’s breath came in short, shallow gasps as she snatched up her phone, thanking every listening divine power for speed dial. _Stay focused, tell them what’s going on_ –“Hello? I need an ambulance! It’s– My brother, I think he’s having a seizure!”

 

≠≠≠

 

 _Tired_ was not the right word to describe how Asseylum felt, looking down at the letter she held loosely in one hand. _Ill_ , perhaps, or _nauseated_ , or _aching_ , would be more accurate.

_“You shall have our loyal support if and only if you grant a complete pardon. All blame for our actions under Count Sazbaaum shall be transferred to the dead Terran impostor. In exchange, we shall withdraw our forces and castles from Earth and return to Vers.”_

She’d read those words– how many times? As if reading them again could change them. The four counts were adamant that they should face no punishment, no retaliation, for their crimes against Earth– and against her, for they were the last remaining threads of Count Sazbaaum’s network of conspirators.

She had to find a way to get them to leave Earth, and with every fruitless attempt at negotiation her options grew fewer. They would take nothing but complete compliance with their demands. It seemed like her only choice was that or force– and how many would die in such a useless conflict?

Asseylum’s fingers curled into a fist around the paper. She had brought this on Earth with her foolishness. She was to blame for this. She was to blame, and so she must find the solution. It was her responsibility, and no one else’s.

A hand rested softly on her shoulder. “You look upset. What is troubling you?”

Asseylum carefully adjusted her smile and looked back to Klancain. “It is nothing significant. The counts have replied with their latest demands.”

“And they want…?”

“Complete absolution of any wrongdoing.”

“And for that wrongdoing to be placed on Sazbaaum-Troyard? No, don’t look away– I know you are still shaken and grieved by his treachery and death, but… what would be the harm in blaming a dead man? It would prevent the terrible loss of life that will unavoidably happen if we are forced to engage with them.”

“I know,” she sighed, “but you must understand that I am… reluctant.”

Klancain smiled. “You have a kind heart, your Majesty.”

“But I cannot allow it to rule me. The time for kindness is long lost.”

“Perhaps it is.” He turned away, voice quiet and solemn. “The late Count Sazbaaum was respected and revered by many– my own father among them. His influence stretched far, and not merely among the conspirators. It would cause shock and incredulity among many of your most loyal supporters if it were to be made public that he betrayed the royal family so profoundly. Would it not be easier, and safer, to let them think the conspiracy against your life, and the Vers Empire itself, was the responsibility of someone they already despise?”

Asseylum squeezed her eyes shut. _He’s not wrong. And I have no choice. Between the hundreds and thousands of lives that will be lost if the fighting continues, and Slaine_ (he was still Slaine, always Slaine, to her, not Sazbaaum, never Sazbaaum) _– there is no contest._

_I’m sorry, Slaine._

“I am profoundly grateful for your insights, my lord. I believe them to be correct.” She breathed in once, long and slow, and released it. “There is no reason for me to wait to respond to them.” _I cannot allow myself time to waver._

Hovering above the blank paper, the pen shook slightly in her hand. She stilled it.

_I’m sorry._

_No matter how hard I try, I continue to do what I always have; hurt you_.

 

≠≠≠

 

_48… 49… 50… 51… 52…_

The building they were holding him in was clearly old, Slaine thought, staring emptily at the ceiling. There were 63 cracks in the concrete above him.

_52… 53… 54… 55… 56…_

Most of them spread from the far right corner, branching and intersecting and twisting. 18, however, sprouted from the middle of the left wall, just to the side of the cell door. They were smaller, newer– probably caused by whatever retrofitting had been done to turn this place into a prison.

_57… 58… 59… 60… 61…_

The two he always saved for last stood apart from the rest. They corrupted the ceiling right over the bed, almost perfectly parallel– though one, the one on the right, bent sharply away from the other halfway along its length.

_62… 63._

He was nineteen, now. He had to be. There was no way to tell for sure, but enough time had passed for the day to have come and gone. Not that anyone had noticed. And he hadn’t minded– why should his birth be celebrated, when they would soon have his death to celebrate?

It would be nice to know, though, how soon it would be. How long he would have to wait. Counting flaws, counting breaths, counting heartbeats–

Counting down to when it could all finally go quiet.

Slaine dragged in a long, ragged breath– _one less between him and silence_ – and turned his listless gaze back upwards.

_1… 2… 3… 4… 5…_

≠≠≠

 

Light glanced off the darting blades as they met, parted, met, parted. A swift forward strike, opponent dancing backwards. Tension etched over ready shoulders, light feet, raised blades. It was a careful back-and-forth, a weaving of metal and limbs tense with readiness. One-two, parry, riposte in a single twisting motion that flowed into a strike that just barely flew over a curled shoulder. Bodies tripping away from one another, standing ready once more. Locked, waiting, in a delicately balanced absence of motion.

Then, swifter than a snake, one lunged, weapon searching silver and hungry to its target– and hit, squarely on the chest over the heart.

The floor and walls lit up green. On the screen on the wall, bold letters proclaimed “WINNER: COUNT HELENE MORGAINE.”

Both combatants lowered their blades. One reached up, pulled off her helmet, and bowed. “My lady, your prowess with the blade is unmatched.”

Helene smiled, shaking out her coppery hair. “And your skill with the foil never fails to impress me. You are no easy opponent to defeat. Excellently fought, Valkyr.” They proceeded to the changing room, Valkyr keeping pace just behind Helene’s right shoulder.

Valkyr stood by, quietly holding Helene’s uniform, as the Count removed her fencing gear. As Helene pulled on the maroon coat, she turned her eyes to her knight. “The most essential element for a good win is to strike first, and with great precision. Valkyr, you have the precision– your every movement in the ring is careful and deliberate– but you are too cautious. You hold back, waiting for your opponent to strike– you rarely leap to the attack. That,” she continued, fingers carefully doing the last button, “is why I, despite your remarkable skill, defeat you most every time. Because the one who strikes first, with confidence and force, always wins.”

“Yes, my lady. Though I fear your eye for opponents’ weaknesses and your strategic skill are far beyond me.”

Helene inclined her head. “Perhaps. Now, accompany me to my office. There are some… _matters_ which I wish to discuss.”

“The Terran’s research?”

Helene’s lip twisted. “Yes. Precisely.”

Not a paper lay out of place on the desk, and it was spotlessly clean of even the miniscule amount of dust that settled in space. Bookshelves– an unusual luxury on a landing castle, where room was at a premium– lined the walls, filled full of books with worn bindings and thin, yellowed pages. To the right of the desk, one wall was an open window to the immeasurable blackness outside, scattered over with stars.

Helene delicately picked up a tablet, every line of her body emanating distaste. “This is the sort of heresy one would have been dry-drowned for not a year ago, and yet the Empress is not merely allowing but _promoting_ its dissemination?”

“Yes, my lady. My contacts have confirmed that this information is being made available in every major city on Earth and Vers.”

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” Helene snorted disdainfully. “Behind that pretty face there is nothing but visions of empty Terran skies.” Her face twisted with derision. “And this careless child thinks she can rule? I am supposed to bend knee and swear fealty to such a fool?” She stood sharply, throwing down the tablet, and strode to the window. “In any conflict, victory lies in striking first, without doubt or hesitation. Anything less than perfect confidence in your goals and abilities will destroy you from within. So tell me, Celesta,” Helene looked back over her shoulder, eyes sharp, “if, as this heretic rag claims, the sacred power of Aldnoah is not sacred and resides in the royal family by a mere accident of chance, then what reason is there for me to serve this so-called Empress, who could barely flail her way through a peace negotiation?”

“I do not rightly know, my lady.”

“Exactly.” Helene turned back to the window, staring out into the blackness.

Valkyr pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and cleared her throat. “Though, if I may be so bold as to ask, my lady… Denmark? Is that not a former Terran state?”

“Ah. Yes, you are correct. It is a line from a famous play by an old Terran poet, written hundreds of years before Terrans had even thought of touching Vers. Yet, even though he was merely Terran, his works show a fascinating understanding of the human heart, and his skill with words is remarkable.” She sighed. “Is it not fascinating to think that our forebears shared the same culture as Terrans, the same countries, languages, and blood? As archaic and limited as old Terran culture is, it still has a surprising amount to offer.”

“You know far more on the subject than I, my lady.”

Helene smiled, slow and scornful. “My father dragged me to that damp, dank planet– should I not be curious about it? In truth, I was glad to leave that useless lump of rock behind.” She looked out the window again, to where the long rust-red crescent that was the daylight side of Vers was just beginning to arch across the sky. “Vers has no need for Earth. We are free from our lowly roots– so why should we reach back and cling to them? The _Empress_ ” her lip twisted with scorn “can mewl and whine for hours about how we should strengthen connections with our home planet, how Earth and Vers _need_ each other– _pah_ ,“ she spat, “such tepid, weak words sicken me. The Rayvers line have always been fools, prideful fools, but this one is the worst of them all. The masses foam and gnash their teeth for Terran blood like the rats they are, and she thinks she can calm them with a wave of her hand? She knows nothing, and performs her ignorance on the public stage! It has always been human nature to resist change to the status quo– unless the situation has become so degenerate that the status quo is no longer tolerable. The starving gutter filth must turn their rage somewhere, and it will turn on her if she is too weak to guide it.”

Valkyr’s eyes narrowed. “My lady, may I share an observation?”

“Of course, Celesta. I rely heavily on your observations; they are always welcome.”

“You are using the same tone of voice you use when you are about to challenge me to a fencing match.”

Again, Helene smiled– but this time, it was with the sharpness of bared fangs. “Clever as always, Valkyr. Clever as always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Beta'd by [Reito-tan](reito-tan.tumblr.com), [CountLestannaoftheVersEmpire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CountLestannaoftheVersEmpire/pseuds/CountLestannaoftheVersEmpire), and [snoweau](snoweau.tumblr.com).
> 
> Now, fair warning: this is a long haul fic. It is plot-centric, full of many heavy themes, and it's gonna get dark. Not that there won't be fluff/happy stuff! It will just be… rarer. I'm going to take canon by the horns (so to speak) and wrangle some logic out of it. However long that takes.
> 
> Also, this will be a redemption fic for several characters– and Asseylum is one of them. Yes, this fic (if you haven't already guessed) will feature a lot of her. I won't defend or idealize her, but I will write her as empathetically as I can.
> 
> Lastly, I mean it when I say super-slow burn. There won't be any romance until many chapters down the line. But I promise there will eventually be orangebat.
> 
> The beginning line is from the song "Part II : Previously On Other People's Heartache…" by Bastille.


	2. 1.2 | Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings (mild, but still): brief trauma flashbacks, mention of injury.

_And if you’re still breathing, you’re the lucky ones_

_For most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs._

                  – Daughter, _Youth_.

 

* * *

 

 

Drifting…

Inaho felt weightless, formless.

It was almost… pleasant… like this.

Just… floating, in a thick fog.

Distant snatches of conversations, voices, fragments, filtered down.

 

_“… always a risk of seizures associated with traumatic brain injury. Now, with the expansion of the analytical engine into other areas of his brain and its extensive overuse, combined with the subsequent strain on the already damaged tissue…”_

_“… looks so peaceful, sleeping there, doesn’t he?”_

_“… can’t be certain of the extent of the damage. The engine compensated heavily for any functional deficit, especially in linguistic processing, and its removal…”_

_“… just hit the call button if you need anything, Ms. Kaizuka…”_

_“… can’t be certain when he will regain consciousness. The surgery was performed with the minimum of preparation due to the emergency circumstances, so…”_

_“Wake up soon, Nao. I miss you.”_

The words rolled off of his mind like raindrops down a windowpane. They flowed around him and out into the nothingness, meaningless.

 

≠≠≠

 

Blurry, brilliant light. His eyelids felt so heavy…

…eyelids?… no… not… _eyelids_ …

…something was… wrong… missing…

A hand, heavy, warm over his. His fingers curled reflexively around it.

Sinking down, again…

 

≠≠≠

 

Something pressed over his face. An… oxygen mask? Dim… the light was weaker. To his side, the sound of breathing…

He couldn’t see a person. He couldn’t see half the room.

Why…?

He turned his head toward the sound, the effort throwing a wave of fuzziness over him. Black hair, a familiar round face… Ah… Yuki. He felt warmer, though the air hadn’t changed.

Even as another wave of nothingness rose to claim him, the thought filtered up to the surface of his mind: Yuki would wake up to an aching neck, dozing off slumped in a chair like that. She should find somewhere more comfortable to sleep.

 

≠≠≠

_“Happy birthday, Nao. I just wish… I just wish that you didn’t have to turn eighteen in a hospital bed.”_

 

≠≠≠

 

_18 February 2017._

The wedding dress was surprisingly simple, much like the ceremony had been. There hadn’t been time for spectacle and extravagance, not now.

“Please, do not tarry,” she urged Eddelrittuo, hoping that her voice did not seem too sharp. “I must be on the shuttle in two hours’ time. The Counts would take great offense if we were late, and the peace cannot afford that.”

“Yes, your Majesty. Of course.” Asseylum expected her to continue– perhaps to say something praising the ceremony, or wishing her Empress happiness in her new union– but she remained quiet.

Guilt, thick and cold, rose over Asseylum’s heart in a wave. Eddelrittuo had taken the news of Slaine’s “death” very badly (she could still remember, the way the maid’s face had paled, how fragile her voice had been as she asked to be excused, later pretending to not notice the dried tear tracks down the girl’s face), and the desecration of his memory that Asseylum herself had just been forced to commit barely a month before had been another blow. Was it really all that unexpected that Eddelrittuo should have changed so much?

They had all changed so much.

The neat little scar between her shoulder blades where the bullet had hit sent a sudden bolt of ice through her chest, and her breath came short and gasping, lungs filling with the memory of her own blood–

She had turned eighteen floating comatose in a tank. A year and a half of her life, gone– and so much had happened while she drifted.

Too much.

Inaho… even now, he lay in the hospital, laid low by causes she knew not– other than that it had something to do with the strange biomechanical eye she had spoken with in the last days of the war. That clawing uncertainty almost pained her more than simply knowing that something was terribly wrong with him.

And Slaine… it hurt to think of him. He had done such horrible, unimaginable things– all for her. Because of her. She had ruined him. What right did she have to even think of him, after all the travails he had suffered in her name? She had never asked him for such loyalty, it was true– but that made her no less responsible for what had happened to him. She had only ever harmed him, even when she thought she was helping him. _Inaho, I trust you. I hope you may succeed where I have failed._

“Your Majesty? Is everything alright?” Asseylum started at Eddelrittuo’s soft voice.

“Oh, it is nothing. Thank you for your concern. I was merely…” she glanced in the direction she knew Earth to be beneath their orbit. “Remembering…” She shook herself. Now was not the time to wander in solemn contemplation of the unchangeable past, the unkind present. She must look to the future. The withdrawal of the four counts’ forces depended on this meeting. Negotiations were finished; all that was left was the delicate political dance of courtesy and formalities.

“The lavender dress, please, Eddelrittuo. And thank you.” Lavender– hinting at royal purple, but not too forcefully. Just enough to remind the counts what– and _who_ – they were dealing with.

Asseylum had to ensure that everything went smoothly. She was Empress of Vers, by title, standing, and right. This fragile peace was in her hands, and hers alone.

She would not let it fail.

 

≠≠≠

 

“There is to be a gala to celebrate the Empress’s wedding.” Helene leaned back in her seat, one eyebrow raised. “Interesting, that she is so occupied fluttering from place to place on Earth like a frightened pigeon that she cannot hold her own wedding in the seat of her rule.”

Valkyr adjusted her glasses. “Am I correct, my lady, in assuming that you intend to go even so?”

“Of course. It would be a grave slight, and highly suspect, not to throw the appropriate fuss over the Empress’s pretty little union of convenience. But that is hardly the sum of it. All but a handful of the most important figures on Vers will be present. Why throw away an opportunity to build my influence?”

“It is indeed an excellent chance. And… if I may, my lady…” Valkyr’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What do you wish to gain from this influence?”

Helene’s lips curled in a smirk. _Sharp as always. You can see where this is going._ “A bold question, Celesta. One might say too bold, even for a knight. Ah–“ she held up a hand to stop the apology already on Valkyr’s lips “– do not take it back. I value your sharpness, your boldness, your relentless desire for information. I rely on them. And so,” she said, lacing her fingers together before her, “I shall tell you.

Aldnoah is no God-given power; it means nothing. Without it, our _dear_ Empress and her lineage are nothing more than a pack of fortunate fools. They rule from within their comfortable bubble. Serving them is demeaning, and I refuse to prostrate myself before those who deserve not my respect but my scorn. There is a key difference between us: _I_ possess the will and the strength to hold dominion over Vers. Smashing them to pieces will be little trouble. The old man is dying quickly enough on his own that I won’t even need to touch him. I shall destroy this toy Empress, and I will take her throne.”

“Treasonous words, my lady.”

“Do you think me a traitor to Vers, Celesta?” Helene purred, eyes glittering dangerously. This was _fun_.

Valkyr drew herself up. “My lady,” she knelt, one hand over her heart in a salute, “I know you are right. The Rayvers line does not deserve to wear the crown. It must sit on another, more worthy, head.”

“Mine?” _You know what to say, Valkyr, so say it_.

“Yes, my lady. I shall serve you however you require, and follow you wherever you lead. To the very throne of Vers itself. I swear to you my heart, my skills, and my undying loyalty.” She extended her hand to Helene.

 _Very good, Valkyr_ , Helene thought, standing. “Sir Celesta Valkyr, rise.” She took Valkyr’s outstretched hand and pulled her to her feet. “I accept your vow,” Helene breathed, lips brushing the back of Valkyr’s fingers. Then she pulled away, noting with approval how Valkyr did not flinch at the unexpected gesture– one reserved only for royalty accepting a knight’s pledge. That level head would serve her well. “Now, I require your services.”

Valkyr inclined her head. “Yes, my lady?”

“Reach out to your contacts amongst the common rabble. Find out the lay of the land, and see if you can find any remnants of the groups that most loudly supported Sazbaaum-Troyard’s cause and aims. There is still much simmering discontent; I must know how far it extends before I make any moves, however.” _There were pathetic gutter-rats sobbing and wailing in the streets at Sazbaaum-Troyard’s death– but there were also those who celebrated it publicly. My course of action must be carefully calculated. Only fools think the battle will favor them without pausing to read the field._

Bowing, Valkyr said, “As you wish, my lady. I shall begin immediately.”

 

≠≠≠

 

_14 April 2017._

“Aldnoah… Awaken!”

 _This moment will be not be forgotten_ , Asseylum thought, gazing out over the crowd. There were hundreds of cameras there, from large news station crews to phones waving determinedly above the heads of the spectators. _It will be remembered, in history books, in news articles, in the stories the people here today will tell their children. The worlds have waited a very long time for this day._

She had waited far too long for this day, even before she had known she was waiting. She’d been waiting for this since the day she was born– born on Vers, one hundred and forty million miles lost from the cradle of humanity. The curse, the blessing, of Aldnoah had split Earth and Vers asunder. But now… it would unite them once more. In peace. In harmony.

Perhaps, after today… she could finally find some time to rest.

After so many months– how many, since the end of the war? Only five? It felt so, _so_ much longer than that– it was easy to keep the brilliant, perfect, practiced smile on her face, shaking hands with dignitary after dignitary. An Empress never tired, was never anything less than polished and confident. An Empress never falters. An Empress never breaks–

– _the cold, brittle sensation of a chain tightening around her throat, the impact of bullets in her flesh, one-two, the world dissolving in a nightmare bloom of pain_ –

Asseylum’s smile did not falter as she reached for Klancain’s hand. She did not allow it to. He gave her hand a comforting squeeze, subtle enough that to most it would appear a completely ordinary gesture of marital affection. These long months had been enough for him to notice the times when old fears curled around her heart, and his constant support through them had been invaluable. _And it still is_ , she thought, returning the gentle touch and resisting leaning into his comforting warmth.

“Thank you for your kind wishes, General! It has been a pleasure meeting you, Minister! Your assistance was vital to the success of this project, Senator, and Vers owes you a debt of gratitude.” The required mindless pleasantries rolled effortlessly off her tongue. Not for much longer, though. The congratulatory crowd was thinning. Now, over the tops of their heads, she could see the crew of the Deucalion waiting along the wall– Inko’s cheerful wave, the flash of Nina’s phone camera, Calm’s indignant squawk as Rayet elbowed him over some offense.

Klancain gracefully swooped in and dragged away the last lingering official, flashing an understanding look at her over his shoulder as he effortlessly charmed the agricultural minister into an enthusiastic discussion of historical Terran crop-rotation strategies. She allowed herself one small, grateful sigh as the hovering crew rushed forwards.

“Great to see you again, Prin– er, your Majesty!” Nina squealed, rushing forward with her arms thrown wide– only to stop, hanging back awkwardly.

Asseylum laughed. “It’s fine– believe me, sometimes even I forget!”

“Yeah, it’s all happened very fast, hasn’t it?” Inko’s eyes were wistful, but she smiled as she held out her hand. “It’s been a long time, your Majesty.”

“Too long.” It almost surprised her, how much she meant it.

“You’re as beautiful as ever, my Lady– um, if I can say that to you now?” Calm stammered, face slowly reddening.

“Thank you, Calm,” Asseylum smiled– _it is not weakness, after all, to take comfort in the familiar_ – “Your kind words are much appreciated.” She couldn’t help but notice Rayet hanging back behind the others, violet eyes narrowed and arms crossed in front of her, but she didn’t mention it. “So… how is Inaho doing?” _He’s not here_. She tried not to let the thought hurt. After all, what right did she have to expect him to rush to see her when she hadn’t even been able to visit him when he was bedbound in the hospital?

“He’s…” Inko trailed off, and then rallied. “He’s doing alright. He… told me to say hello for him. I’m– I’m sure he’s sorry he couldn’t come. He’s… busy with something today. Some military thing. I–“

“It’s fine, Inko. I understand. Is he cured of what ailed him?”

Inko’s expression twisted with discomfort. “Ah… I can’t say. Top-secret military information.” She shrugged. “Sorry. I know it had to be hard, not knowing.”

“I“ – _worried greatly, how could I not?–_ “tried not to worry too much. I know Inaho is strong– much stronger than most. It would take a truly terrible injury to defeat him.”

Inko’s face flickered again– but with something different, this time. Pain? Sorrow? _Anger_? It was too quick for Asseylum to catch. But she said nothing more than a quiet “Yeah.”

“I’m glad to hear that you are all in good health. I’m sure these last months have been very trying times.”

“You’d know better than anyone, wouldn’t you?” Rayet’s voice rose from the back, flat and frigid.

“Ah– not really, after all, I haven’t been fighting on the front lines like you all have.”

“But my Lady!” Nina interrupted, “you’ve been running yourself ragged going back and forth for the peace talks! That’s just as important! After all, everything we’ve been doing on the Deucalion wouldn’t mean anything without the peace that you brought! We owe you a lot! Oh, and, um…” she fiddled nervously with her phone, eyes lighting eagerly. “Would you mind letting me take a picture with you? You know, like friends do? To prove to people that I really have met you! The nerve some people have! As if I’d lie about that!”

 _Like friends do– that sounds wonderful_. “Of course, Nina! I would be glad to.”

“Great! Hey, Inko, Rayet, Calm, get over here! It’s time for a selfie party!” Asseylum could almost feel the tension draining out of her body as everyone crowded around– even a reluctant and scowling Rayet, dragged over by Inko.

_Even royalty has to have a little time to be human, don’t they?_

“Okay everyone, get in closer– and smile!” Nina trilled, phone held as far out as her straining arms could make it.

“Got it, Nina?” asked Inko, squeezed in to Asseylum’s right.

“Almost– just a little– there! Got it! Thanks, everybody!” Nina hunched over her phone, nearly glowing with delight. “Especially you, your Majesty“–

A chorus of loud, demanding chirps interrupted her. Calm, the first to pull out his pager, groaned. “Aw, what do the higher-ups want now? Don’t they know we’re partyin’?”

“As if they care if we have fun,” Inko snorted. “It’s probably some boring meeting. Sorry to leave so suddenly– We’ll see you around, Prin– ah, Empress!”

“And I was hoping to get an interview with that really cute reporter too, aw mannnn– Ow! Watch those elbows, Inko!”

“Farewell, and good hunting!” Asseylum watched them leave, hoping her expression didn’t show too much wistfulness. “Rayet, don’t you need to go too?”

Rayet snorted. “They can wait a couple of measly minutes. Because _I_ –“ she yanked her hands out of her pockets, advancing on Asseylum “– have something I need to ask you.”

 _Maintain grace under pressure_. “How may I assist you?”

“Nice of you to ask so prettily like that” Rayet snarled.

“I– I’m sorry?”

“Do you even hear what comes out of your mouth? _These last months have been very trying times_ – you bet your cushion-covered ass they have! You think you can sit up and snap your fingers and just like that, seventeen years of war will be over and done with? It’s just fine, everyone’s happy now?”

“Well, I–“

“What, you think pretty words are gonna be enough for this?”

“Rayet, you’re not making sense–“

“I’m making sense, all right! You just don’t want to take your delicate fingers out of your ears and listen!” Rayet flung her arms open, gesturing violently. “There’s a whole great big fucked-up world out there, absolutely lousy with shit! This war isn’t over! Nothing is over! There’s still shit _everywhere_! You think you’ve magically gotten rid of everyone’s problems? What about the people _starving to death_ back on Mars, huh? I’m sure they just _love_ this!”

“I–“ Asseylum paused, and took a long, centering breath. “I am certain that conditions on Vers have improved, and will improve, with the cessation of the culture of hatred and violence that gripped us for so many years. The royal family has made many mistakes and grave errors in our treatment of the people– but I know I can set them right.“

“Oh yeah? Have you tried actually _asking_ any of the people you’re so sure you’re helping?” Rayet stopped, and then looked away, almost visibly shrinking. “I… it’s just… you’re not some kind of fucking angel. Just… open your fucking eyes,” she rasped. “This isn’t some game, this is _real_. There are _real people_ in this, and they can’t get out, and they could _die_ because of that. Because of this. And all the pretty speeches in the world won’t help them. You… you can’t fuck this up.” Rayet’s gaze turned back to her, sharpened. “ _Empress_.”

 _Oh_. It would have been better if Rayet had kept shouting. Easier. Easier than the true, half-hidden pain in her voice, easier than the tight, sick feeling that wound itself through Asseylum’s ribcage.

Was it possible, she wondered dizzily, for one’s heart to beat so hard that it bruised against the bone that caged it?

She reached forward, taking Rayet’s hands in hers even as the girl tried to jerk away. “Rayet. Thank you. You are right– I must not only speak, but also listen, and understand. Your words mean more to me than you can know.”

“You shouldn’t be so nice to someone who just chewed you out,” Rayet snapped, shifting uncomfortably.

“Those who speak the truth one needs to hear should be valued.” Asseylum smiled. “Go. Find your friends. I do not wish to cause you trouble.”

Rayet’s eyes flickered uncertainly, but she drew away and turned to leave. Then, as she reached the doorway, she paused and shouted back over her shoulder, “Being nice is great and all, but it’s not gonna get bread on peoples’ tables. Don’t forget that.” And then she vanished around the doorframe.

“I won’t!” Asseylum called after her. And she wouldn’t. How could she? She needed moments like this, _people_ like this, to remind her what she must hold on to. It was all too easy to forget, in the back-and-forth of the negotiation table, what the stakes were. The world that she had grown up in, the walls that had sheltered her–

They _ate_ people. People like Rayet and her lost family. What appeared pure was often false and corrupted.

Vers was rotting from the inside out. _And I_ , Asseylum thought, _must cleanse it_.

 

≠≠≠

 

“Your eye.”

Inaho paused, hand hovering over the chessboard. This unprompted communication was… unexpected.

“Is that from when I shot you?”

An interesting choice of question, out of all the ones Troyard could have asked. He raised a hand to cover the patch– habit, more than anything else. “An analytical engine. I had a bio-device implanted that was neuro-linked to my cranial nerves. But I had it removed. I don’t need it anymore.” More detail was not necessary. Troyard did not need to know– and indeed, would not care– about the bottle of anti-seizure pills on Inaho’s bedside table. About the moments where voices became a meaningless blur of sound when he was tired, or under stress, that had plagued him in the weeks since his release from the hospital. Therefore, that information was irrelevant.

Troyard’s eagerness for death, on the other hand, was incomprehensible. What benefit could there be in dying? It may have been Seylum’s wish, and not Inaho’s own, for Troyard to be saved, but Inaho had no great desire to see the man _dead_ now that the end of the war made such killing unnecessary.

The raw, open vulnerability of Troyard’s shocked expression was also unexpected. This behavior did not match with the cold, collected leader of the Martian forces that all of Earth had seen in the broadcasts. It was easily apparent that the wishes of an old childhood companion affected Troyard profoundly– but _why_?

It was another frustratingly isolated piece in the mystery of what drove Troyard so ferociously through the years of the war. That mystery, like many other things, was obsolete, an artifact of times past– but something which Inaho could not let go. Troyard’s mind mirrored his just enough that, sometimes, he thought he understood– but then, without warning, Troyard would become completely incomprehensible. It was infuriating. It was fascinating. It was…

Unsettling. Especially during moments like this one, when Troyard reacted in a way that lay completely outside of Inaho’s comprehension. Troyard’s broken sobs, his shaking shoulders, the way he clutched desperately at that necklace– _What hides within you? How can you be so much like me, and yet so alien? Who are you, really?_

Still, regardless of his own curiosity, Inaho knew that most people were uncomfortable with crying in front of others. Any comfort he had to offer would be neither useful nor welcome. A quick, quiet exit would be appropriate.

 

The sunlight was so, so much brighter than the prison glare.

 

 

Somewhere, in the distance, a seagull screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update: Saturday, September 5th.
> 
> Finally done with events during the canon timeline! And Asseylum’s perspective twice in one chapter, whoo boy! It's interesting to write a character who is simultaneously so self-centered and so self-hating. Sheltered royal upbringing+war will do that, I guess.
> 
> Also, paying attention to the dates at the top of sections is important for understanding the timeline of this fic (which I realized is completely off by about six months after I re-watched ep.24 again, but I’ve got too much detailed planning done now to change it, RIP me). A section that doesn’t have a date takes place during the same timeframe as the last section with a date above it– unless the POV character has no way to accurately perceive time, as with Inaho's undated sections at the beginning of the chapter.
> 
> Now that I’m done with canon, I can launch full steam ahead into the plot! Next chapter will be for the boys, and it's gonna be a rough one…


	3. 1.3 | Fenrir, Bound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was strange, not having an end to wait for._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: mentions of suicide/suicidal ideations, descriptions of graphically bloody violent nightmares, flashbacks to torture, dissociation.
> 
> As you might have guessed from those warnings, this is a Slaine-centric chapter! And being Slaine… kind of sucks. Be careful reading.

 

> _The fettered beast was then transported to some suitably lonely and desolate place. The chain was tied to a boulder and a sword was placed in the wolf’s jaws to hold them open. As he howled wildly and ceaselessly, a foamy river called “Expectation” flowed from his drooling mouth. And there, in that sordid state, he remained – until Ragnarok._
> 
>                                                                                 –Dan McCoy, _The Binding of Fenrir_

 

Out, damned spot! Out, I say!– One, two, Why,

then, ‘tis time to do’t. Hell is murky!–Fie, my

lord, fie! A soldier, and afeared? What need we

fear who knows it, when none can call our power to

account?–Yet who would have thought the old man

to have had so much blood in him?

   –William Shakespeare, _Macbeth_ , Act V, Scene 1.

* * *

 

 

The screaming of gulls, thready and discordant, filtered through the barred window in the hallway. There had to be water somewhere nearby. Not that it mattered. Slaine wouldn’t be leaving these walls for the rest of his life– however short or long that was. The greater the length of time he lived, the less disappointed her Highness would be when he died, so he had to keep going for as long as he could. He owed her that much, at least. He could not throw away the gift she had given him once more, regardless of whether or not he deserved it.

Concrete walls leeched any trace of warmth from the air. But Slaine was used to the empty chill of space that seeped through any ship’s climate-control systems; even the lowest temperatures of Earth were nothing compared to that.

Not that the thin sheets or barely-present mattress on the plain metal bedframe provided much help. The bedframe, bolted to the floor, all sharp edges sanded away. The sheets, that tore under the slightest tension, as though he would be desperate enough to try and hang himself with _sheets_ – and on what, exactly? There was nothing in this featureless cell other than the bed. These precautions credited him with far more resourcefulness than he actually had.

His shoulder and hip ached dully where they pressed against the hard mattress. He rolled over, not particularly caring if the motion momentarily helped to relieve the discomfort. Soon enough, if he was estimating time correctly, someone would come and slide a tray through the slot in the door. _I should actually try eating what they give me this time_ , he thought without any particular emotion, dragging the blanket hem up over his shoulder. It might even have the added benefit of keeping Kaizuka– the incarnate reminder of his sins, his failures– away for a while longer.

It was strange, not having an end to wait for. He had become so used to the idea of his own death being close at hand that anything else was nearly incomprehensible.

≠≠≠

He kept losing count. There were sixty-three cracks in the ceiling, he knew that– but he came up with sixty-four, or sixty-two, or, once, only sixty. The ceiling wasn’t changing, though, he knew that. But every time he tried to focus on the numbers, he began drifting, mind undefined, fuzzy. Concentrating was impossible.

It didn’t matter. There was no place for him outside these crumbling walls; there was no place for him within them either. Tracing flaws was merely a way to pass the time (the formless, boundless expanse of time that stretched away into the distance, an infinity of four grey walls). Meaningless.

Just as anything he ever tried to do always was.

≠≠≠

There was no source of light in his windowless cell. The only illumination came from the little window in the hallway, the light it allowed past the bars reflecting dimly off the impersonally blank walls into the cell. On sunny days, the square of brilliance against the stone was almost blinding.

(And one frantic morning, he had forced his body against the bars until his shoulder ached and his skin bruised, reaching for that beam of sunlight– but it remained forever beyond the grasp of his desperate fingers.)

≠≠≠

It was dark, now. In the cell, at least. It could have been dark outside, or just early or late in the day. There was no way for him to tell, no way to track time here and no reason to care about its passage.

_Fifty… fifty-one… fifty-two… fifty-three…_

Little differentiated each moment from the one that preceded it, or the one that would follow it. There were changing levels of light, guard shifts, mealtimes, sometimes sounds from outside– wind-whistle, rain pattering, the cries of seabirds. That was all that marked life, here.

_Fifty… fifty… fifty-something…_

He gave up, let the numbers slip away. Briefly, he entertained the thought: could this really be called living, what happened in these walls? But it unraveled swiftly, and he watched it sink back into darkness.

It didn’t matter what he thought. The Princess desired that he should live, and so he would.

≠≠≠

_The room stank of sweat and pain. Slaine hadn’t known that pain had a smell, before this, but it was there, acrid and visceral and ugly, and it was strong._

_The whip bit into his skin again, and– maybe he screamed, or maybe he had lost his voice hours ago, and was only imagining it, the violent sensation so powerful that it overwhelmed his senses, transformed his body into one united cry of agony–_

_The world churned, and he sat in the cockpit of the Tharsis for the first time, ramming the orange kataphract through the wall of the landing castle. The thin metal barrier was nothing against the combined weight of the chaotic whirl of reinforced steel that crashed into it. The Princess was as brilliant as a star in the darkness of the aldnoah chamber, but she was no star– just a candle flame against the vastness, and she flickered out just as easily. His vision was blurred to nothingness, but the ring of gunshots, the recoil of the pistol in his hands, were not. He must have bitten his tongue, for his mouth was filling with the thick, metallic tang of blood._

_His arm rose without conscious command, and Orange turned, wearing that gore-spattered smirk._ Crack _, and Orange fell– and then rose again, blood streaming from his shattered eye. Slaine shot again, and again, but Orange merely lay there with a body blasted full of holes, smirking, as blood flooded the room. It rose, kept rising, past his ankles, knees, waist, chest, shoulders–_

_As his finger tightened on the trigger one last time, Orange melted away, and he looked down the barrel at his own tear-streaked face._

_The gun went off._

_Blood was the only thing he could taste, now. It clogged his throat until he gagged, coughing and choking. He was swimming in a lake of it, suffocating, drowning. Again. He gasped for air, but his empty lungs only flooded with the awful, cloying liquid. Red filled his eyes, clogged his nose and mouth, scraped at his ears with whispering voices:_ murderer, traitor, filth, defiled, disgusting, false, cruel, liar, monster.

_Iron bands constricted around his ribs, body crying out for breath._

_His throat convulsed, futilely straining to clear itself– but there was no angel to draw the death from him here._

_He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. His thrashing weakened, muscles failing._

Monster _._

_The world was red and pain._

_≠_

Slaine did not jolt awake. He had learned the ugly necessity of appearing to wake calm and unperturbed, attracting no attention, no mockery, no beatings. Learned it so long ago that it had sunk below conscious awareness to the level of instinct. But it was difficult to suppress the way his chest heaved, heart pounding with the lingering memory of clogged lungs, whispered wounds, the stench of blood.

A layer of sweat soaked his thin prison clothes, stuck strands of hair to his forehead and neck, slicked his palms as the edges of his pendant dug into his clutching fingers. The chill night air stole any heat, leaving his skin clammy and damp.

These nightmares were nothing new. The empty days in this prison, though, left him with no way to block them as he had in the past, no chances to work himself to the blank, dreamless sleep of exhaustion. So the night terrors intensified, in frequency and in violence.

The setting of the sun brought no rest for him. Never for him, with his blood-soaked hands, with the thick, heavy chains of his sins binding him. This was his payment, his penance, his justice rightly served.

 

≠≠≠

 

_14 May 2017._

 

Inaho made it his new policy to never break the silence in the visitation room himself. If Troyard did not wish to engage in conversation, then Inaho would not force him to it. So, after five and a half minutes of the quiet clinking of a one-sided chess match, it was Troyard who spoke first.

“I don’t want your second-hand pity.”

His voice was quiet and hoarse with disuse, as though he had barely spoken– or not spoken at all– in the month since Inaho’s first visit. That would bear investigating. But until he had the opportunity to ask the guards… “You assume that I pity you? And ‘second-hand?’”

“What could it be other than pity? Why else would you be here?” Troyard’s brilliant blue-green eyes were flat, distant. “You have every reason to avoid me like the plague. But here you are, anyway, wasting your time with a dead man. But it’s not even your pity; it’s her Highness’s pity for me, and you are loyal enough to her that you act as she would wish you to. So: second-hand.”

“Would you rather I did not visit you at all?”

“What I think doesn’t matter, does it? I won’t tell you to change what you’re intending to do, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Then I shall continue.” Inaho paused as an unexpected idea occurred to him. “Do you not want my pity because you do not wish to be pitied by your enemy, or because you feel it would not be genuine?”

“Both. Neither. Don’t try to play word games with me, Kaizuka.”

“I was not attempting to. I asked out of straightforward curiosity.” _And a desire to understand you more_.

“And what reason would I have to answer you?”

Inaho considered it briefly. “None.”

Troyard looked at him as though the very sight of Inaho’s face made him feel ill. “There you have it. What more do you want?”

 _To fulfill Seylum’s last request of me. To find out why she would care so much about you as to ask it of me. To know why you did what you did, and how. To understand why you are so much like me, and yet so different._ “Nothing, then, if you do not wish to answer questions.”

Troyard’s glare could have peeled paint from steel. “Then _why”_ he hissed, fingers curling around the table edge, “are you even here?”

Ah. An appropriately simple question. “To ensure the maintenance of your physical safety, to provide some modicum of human interaction seeing as you are not allowed visitors, and to gain an accurate assessment of your conditions.”

For a moment, Troyard stared at him. Then, his mouth twisted in a crooked, wry grin. His shoulders began to shake, and he threw his head back and laughed, a high and wild sound that sent a snaking current of uneasiness through Inaho’s chest. “You don’t understand at all, do you? You don’t get it. Just leave, before you say anything else even more foolish.”

 _What did I say that was so wrong?_ Inaho leaned against the car window as Yuki drove away. It had been a mere statement of fact. What was offensive about that? It was moments like these that he missed the analytical engine’s ability to assess the nuances of other people’s words that he could not detect on his own, so that he could more fully grasp their true meaning. Perhaps the question had not been intended literally? That might explain Troyard’s strange reaction.

Why was the other man so difficult to fathom?

A flurry of sound formed to his left. Was Yuki attempting to talk to him? It would be inconsiderate to ignore her if she was. He turned so that she was in his field of view. “Did you say something?”

Yuki’s expression flickered, but then she smiled. “Oh, nothing really! Just asking how this super-top-secret project you’re working on in there is going.”

“The secrecy of the issue– which you yourself just mentioned– would generally indicate that I am not free to share such information.”

She waved dismissively (ignoring Inaho’s “Drive with both hands, Yuki”). “I’m a military officer, and your _sister_ on top of that; I’m not going to be spilling any military info. Any progress?”

He thought of Troyard’s furious eyes, that chilling laugh. “None.”

“That’s rough. Oh well, that’s the way it is sometimes, isn’t it?” As they slowed to a stop at a red light, she glanced over at him. “Is your eye alright? It’s not hurting you, is it?”

He was touching the eyepatch again. _Strange_. Deliberately, he lowered his hand. “No, Yuki. Thank you for asking. I’m fine.”

 

≠≠≠

Curse Kaizuka and his blank eye and his grating monotone and his fucking bland _literalness_. Slaine huddled smaller under the blanket, fingernails digging into the skin of his arms.

Kaizuka had come and gone. That meant, inevitably, in three days, two guards would come into his cell, haul him to his feet and bind his wrists behind him, and drag him down the hall to the tiny medical room with its frigid stone floor and sickeningly brilliant artificial light and distant, disinterested doctor.

Once, years ago, Slaine might have fought against the touch of those cold, impersonal hands on his body. Once, when he fantasized that he was worth something to anyone.

Now, though? There was no reason to resist the monthly check-ups they forced him through, cuffed to the examining table, after Kaizuka’s visits. The nights that followed, filled with half-dreamed, half-remembered manacles biting into his wrists, the crack of the rod against his ribs, the lines of fire scored across his skin by the whip– they did not matter. His life was no longer his own, so his weakness to the past was meaningless to the efforts of those in control here to ensure his continued existence.

If nothing else, at least the now-established monthly routine gave him one more way to keep track of time in here. He suppressed a shudder, hands curling unconsciously to his chest.

Minutes ago, a guard had come by and left a plate of the unappetizing mush they gave him when he was going off his food– as though he’d be somehow _more_ likely to eat it than the normal roster of flavorless meals they placed in front of him, rather than _less_. Not that it was any worse than the artificial stuff he’d eaten for years with the Martians. The flavor, the texture– they weren’t important to him. It was just– eating was so _difficult_ when he had not appetite for it.

He hauled himself onto his other side, staring down the tray. Maybe it was supposed to be oatmeal. Or something resembling oatmeal. _I should try to eat it,_ he thought, resigned. This might be the last time for days that he could keep food down, even if he had to force himself. _I have to stay alive, to ensure that the Princess’s kindness to me does not go to waste._

 

≠≠≠

 

The hands on him felt oddly… fuzzy. As though they were not actually entirely there. Or was he the one who wasn’t entirely here? There was a contented pleasantness to the sensation, as strange as it was. As though, even as they hauled his unresisting limbs onto the table, he could lift gently off the ground and soar away on the sea breezes with the gulls that he saw distant half-second sunlit-wing-shadow flashes of.

This was fine, really. Far better than what he deserved, with the weight of so many deaths on his shoulders. He was drenched in the blood of friends and enemies alike. A fog of death.

Could you drown in fog?

No?

That was unfortunate. It wouldn’t be too bad a way to die. Too easy for him, though. Maybe that was why he couldn’t.

He was back in his cell. Strange. He didn’t remember being brought back.

It was cold here.

He didn’t mind.

_So cold._

≠≠≠

 

It started slowly. So subtle that Slaine barely noticed it.

Little holes in his memories. The sunlight shining through the window outside the cell was on the floor– and then, it was a handbreadth from the top of the wall, without passing over the intervening space. A guard brought a tray of food, steam rising fresh and hot– but when he dragged his heavy limbs from the bed, it was cold and congealing (he hadn’t intended to eat it anyway, he could go without eating for another day or so without too many ill effects).

It got worse.

Larger gaps, surrounded by a strange, distant, hazy sensation.

Guard shifts changed twice in the blink of an eye. The weather shifted like a child’s picture book, flipping between day and night, rain and shine, as swiftly as the turn of a page.

Noticing the passage of time was difficult, in here, where there were so few ways to mark it. Just three walls, bars, the hallway, the window always just out of reach. But it was unmistakable.

He was losing time.

Minutes, hours, once even an entire day– just gone. As though they had been cut neatly out from his life.

 _What is happening to me?_ he thought, curling tighter around himself under the thin, scratchy blanket.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know. It wasn’t as if it was unexpected, either. It had only been a matter of time.

It should have been a frightening thought, and it was, a little. He had relied on his wits to survive for longer than he could remember: losing them was to lose one of the last defenses he had, locked up in this place.

But what use did he have for defenses any more? It would make it far easier to live out the Princess’s wish if he was unaware of his situation. He could just let go. It would never tempt him to find some way of ending it all.

Going mad here would be a relief.

 

≠≠≠

 

Another unchanging morning– or was it evening? With all the gaps, his perception of time was becoming as shredded as an overused rag. Even just opening his eyes felt like far too much of an effort. But now that they were open, so did closing them.

The _Clang!_ of keys in the cell door was violent, unexpected. The way his chest spasmed painfully was invisible, but he couldn’t hide his flinch.

“Come on kid, on your feet! Showerheads don’t bite!”

Ah. So, it was shower day, then. Hauling himself upright, he presented his wrists for the cuffs that closed over them. They cuffed his hands in front of him for shower day, for some reason. Maybe so he could, with enough determination, clean himself without assistance. The guards didn’t want to touch him– and why would they? The corruption in him stood out clear and ugly on his naked skin.

Every week, he had a choice: short shower with no restraints, or longer shower while still in the handcuffs. Every week, he chose the longer shower.

There was no use in chasing after illusory moments of freedom.

The shower room itself was unremarkable: blue-grey ceramic tiles, five showerheads in a line on the wall, a drain in the middle of the floor.

He stood under the one farthest from the door, the spray of water (one temperature, never hot, never cold, merely lukewarm) running over the skin of his eyelids, his neck, his shoulders. It weighted his eyelashes, brushed soft as a kiss over his lips, clung to his body like an embrace.

Every five minutes, a guard peered inside. Checking– what exactly, he couldn’t divine. Possibly hoping to see that he was trying to choke himself with the lone sponge in the room.

A shiver gripped him, worked its way down his spine.

How long had he been here?

His ribs were not merely _showing_ but _prominent_. Hips, elbows, knees– sharp angles. Skin, pale-mottled-paler. Except for the scars. Scars ripped bruise-red and ridged from his skin, a tapestry woven of pain and hatred on the loom of his bones.

It was cold comfort that there were no mirrors in this room. The thought of looking himself in the eyes and being forced to see what he had become left him weak, light-headed.

What would they do if he actually collapsed here? Not much, likely. They had every reason to want him dead. An accidental death would even absolve them of responsibility.

He shook his head hard enough that water droplets, whipped from the ends of his hair, splattered across the floor. Such morbid thoughts were inappropriate, disrespectful to she who had spared his worthless life. Enough.

They unbound his hands so he could dress, as they had so he could undress. His father’s pendant felt warm against his skin as he fastened it around his neck, strange as that was– the metal should be just as cold as anything else here.

Maybe he would be able to sleep tonight.

 

≠≠≠

 

_29 May 2017._

 

“Well, Major Kaizuka, after seeing you for these past months I can comfortably say: I give you a clean bill of mental health. You are indeed as unperturbed about your… _injury_ as you say you are.”

“Don’t worry about offending me, Dr. Kyell– I understand the importance of receiving professional examination in cases involving physical or psychological trauma. It is often difficult for a person to assess the state of their mind without external assistance.”

Dr. Kyell laughed. “Offending someone usually isn’t the primary concern in this line of work. I have to admit, though, most of my patients don’t take quite as… practical an attitude as you do about it! I didn’t expect to enjoy getting to know you as much as I have, Major.” She held out her hand, and shook his firmly.

“I have also found speaking to you to be a pleasant experience.” He wasn’t simply lying to be polite: there _was_ a reason the UFE had selected this particular psychologist to be the one they could trust with the secret of the damage done to Earth’s greatest weapon. Dr. Kyell was skilled and personable, and had made it her life’s work to help the many who had suffered devastating injuries in the wars. _“I was just graduating from high school when Heaven’s Fall happened,”_ she’d told him, _“and, well– it wasn’t so much that I had found my calling, but that my calling found me.”_

“Glad to hear it. I sincerely hope you never have need of my services again– do keep in touch, though, Major Kaizuka.”

“That’s bad business sense, Doctor. But I will attempt to remain in contact with you. And… thank you.” This had been a worthwhile precaution to take, but Yuki would be happy to hear the result. She spent so much time worrying over him already– one less thing would be a significant relief.

 

≠≠≠

 

_The Moonbase’s metal floors always clanked underfoot, hard and unforgiving. Nothing like dirt, like grass, like Earth. Slaine allowed himself to wonder, for a brief moment of weakness, whether he even remembered what it felt like to walk on grass._

_Then he took the red coat from Harklight and flung it over his shoulders. He had a duty. One far greater than any of his own selfish desires. Nothing else was as important._

_It was heavy, an unfamiliar weight of brocade and expensive fabric. Heavy on his shoulders, and strangely warm, and… damp._

_Horror spread through him as he raised his sleeve before his eyes and found it dripping– soaked with fresh, bright blood._

_“I tailored it specially for you, my Lord. It suits you.” Harklight’s face showed nothing but admiration, couldn’t he see? Couldn’t he see that Slaine was filthy, corrupted, drenched in the blood his own hands had shed? Slaine staggered back, chest heaving, every breath he snatched tasting of iron._

_“Yes, it suits you. You look very handsome in red, Slaine.” Lemrina’s voice, behind him. Her arms wrapped around his waist._

_“No!” he gasped, desperately pulling her hands away from his tainted body, but her delicate fingers were already stained crimson. Too late, he had corrupted her too._

_Hands gripped his shoulders, spun him around– and it wasn’t Lemrina who looked at him, but Asseylum. “How could you, Slaine?” she cried, tears in her eyes, “How could you?” Without warning, a brilliant flower of red bloomed across her chest, and she fell back. He couldn’t move, could do nothing but watch in helpless horror._

_And there was Harklight, and Barouhcruz, and all of his captains and soldiers– Saazbaum-Troyard’s most loyal followers. But…_ wrong _._

_Charred, peeling, blistered skin, empty holes for eyes, twisted, broken bodies and missing limbs and stained, ruined uniforms._

_All dead._

_Slaine staggered back, breath coming in short, choked whimpers. Drowning was better than this, whips and chains were better than this, and maybe the fact that he’d rather suffer than face the consequences of his sins said exactly what is to be expected of a blind, cowardly fool–_

_Where solid metal should have been, there was nothing but air beneath his foot._

_He fell. Down and away, a scream dragged from his ragged lungs as the darkness claimed its own._

Perhaps he should have been grateful to wake up in the hard prison bed, sheets twisted and tangled around his body, a terrified cry failing in the back of his throat.

Perhaps he should have been.

 

≠≠≠

_14 June 2017._

 

“Do you understand why I’ve never touched those pieces?”

Inaho paused in the middle of his fifth move– _knight to E5–_ and looked up when Troyard spoke. Was this another rhetorical question? Something in Troyard’s face seemed to say that yes, this was, and he neither expected nor desired to hear Inaho’s opinion on the subject. So Inaho watched him, but took the chance and said nothing.

“It’s because,” Troyard continued, “there’s no point. It’s over; I’ve already conceded the match. There’s no reason for you to keep trying to get me to play, because I’m beaten. You beat me. The game is over.”

Unexpected. Again. _Interesting_. “The end of one game does not preclude the beginning of another.”

“Don’t make me laugh. There are no _beginnings_ left for me.”

“Life does not stop merely because one phase of it has ended.”

Troyard regarded him coldly. “Did the great Inaho Kaizuka really just spontaneously sprout a sense of humor, or are you _actually_ this blind?”

This conversation was not helping elucidate matters. “I merely stated a fact of human existence.”

“Fact? You want to talk facts? All right, then, here’s one: Until the day I die, I am going to exist within these walls. That’s all there is to it.”

“That is true. However, new beginnings are not impossible.”

Troyard did laugh then, a short, sharp bark of a sound. “So you’re saying I should wait around for a miracle? What is there to say that I deserve one?”

“Deserving does not come into the equation.”

“Do you know how many deaths I have caused? How many lives I have ruined? You have to– yours is even first on the list. Think on that, and then tell me that I do not deserve even worse than this.”

A strange mindset. “Do you believe that your life is equal in worth to all those that you have taken?”

Troyard froze. “Are you _mocking_ me?” he breathed, eyes wide with something like hurt, voice low and venomous.

“No. I ask out of curiosity.”

“Why do you even need to ask? Of course my life isn’t worth a fraction as much as everything I have destroyed– but what more can I do to make amends? Regret is not enough, and what could it ever mean coming from me? I know what I am. I betrayed, lied, murdered. I’m a monster, cold, cruel–“

“That is factually inaccurate.” Inaho interrupted, frowning slightly. “Many who served under or alongside you testified loyally to your strength and noble qualities as a leader and soldier.” The words of others– often delivered with no small amount of anger to the man they thought responsible for Troyard’s death– painted a fascinating picture. And Eddelrittuo… what she had to say about Troyard was very… interesting. Intriguing.

_~_

_5 March 2017, Three Months Before._

_“He never– not once, even after it had been more than a year, and my Lady still hadn’t stirred– gave up hope. He–“ her voice broke for an instant around a sob “–he kept me going, said that if I just had faith, I would see her smile again soon. He was so… I know it sounds strange, but he was very kind. He comforted me when it got to be too much, even though I know he was hurting even more than I was. And he always treated her as though she could hear everything. He never acted like she was an object. He treated her with respect. Always. And he never stopped believing that she would wake up someday. I–“ she cut herself off, turning her damp eyes to the floor._

_“If you have something more to say, then you should.” Inaho watched as she worried her lip between her teeth._

_Then she sighed. “I understand that her Highness had to chose between preserving what was left of his memory and protecting the planets from more senseless violence, but… it still hurts more than it should. He cared for her so much, and now the world thinks he wanted to destroy her.”_

_“Is that why you requested to leave Seylum’s service?” He could not help but notice that, this time, she did not react with indignation– or at all– to his overly familiar reference._

_“A– a bit. Well, more than a bit. It was just that I… it was too much, knowing what I know, and staying with her. I love my Lady, but… I can be of more use to her farther away, without my emotions interfering.”_

_~_

“Oh,” Troyard hissed– actually _hissed_ – “So you know more about me than I do, now? ‘Noble qualities as a leader?’ I didn’t lead them to anything but failure and death.”

“It was your orders to surrender that preserved the lives of hundreds of Martian soldiers in the Moonbase–“

“That wasn’t _nobility_ , that was _damage control_. If you think it’s fun to snipe at me about the war you won, _fine_. I won’t stop you. But I’m not going to sit here and let my _enemy_ lecture me about what an _upstanding citizen_ I was. I won’t play your pointless games, Kaizuka!”

Troyard’s fury and raised voice were not outside of Inaho’s expectations. The man had demonstrated in the past a vast capacity for passionate emotional expression. However, the cause– Inaho’s straightforward presentation of evidence– was. It was peculiar for someone as strategically skilled as Troyard to be experiencing such a strong distortion of reality. “I fail to understand your insistence on denying accurate information.”

Troyard slumped back in his chair. He looked up– _remarkable, how vibrant the color of his eyes is even under the desaturating wash of overhead light_ – the set of his shoulders going slack. In the space of a breath, he lost all trace of energy. Every line of his body spoke of exhaustion. “Do you derive some kind of pleasure from tormenting me? Your face could show it more, you know. I don’t care.”

“I am not here for personal amusement. That would be disrespectful to Seylum’s wishes.” _And to your humanity and dignity._

“You don’t enjoy this, then? Then why do you come here? No, don’t answer that– I’m not interested in the same bullshit you plied me with last time.” Troyard’s aggressive words did not match the tiredness of his tone.

“Since you do not want me to answer that, I will not attempt to. But speaking with you is engaging. There are few who present as much of a challenge.”

Abruptly, the fury was back. “Get out!” Troyard snarled, “Now!”

“Did I–“

“ _Out_!” He trembled with rage, looking ready to lunge across the table.

“Is there–“

“Do you _want_ to find out what it feels like to be strangled?” Troyard’s lips curled back from bared teeth, eyes burning.

 _This situation is unsalvageable. A tactical retreat is required_. An unfortunate turn of events.

Every piece of progress he made towards comprehending Troyard immediately became void. He had never encountered a challenge that he was as unable to find a solution to as this one.

On the drive back, he produced the required perfunctory responses to Yuki’s questions, mind far away.

~

Inaho could feel Troyard’s gaze scorching his back long after he had passed out of sight.

 


	4. 1.4 | Fault Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I’m fine. Don’t follow me. Don’t look for me. I know how to take care of myself. Don’t worry too much. I’ll see you again soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: mentions of suicide, dissociation/dissociative episode.
> 
> Disclaimer: I have never experienced C-PTSD, or any similar illness. Therefore, my representation of dissociation/other symptoms is probably inaccurate despite my research. I apologize beforehand for any and all mistakes, and would be glad to hear feedback on them.

* * *

 

_Fault lines tremble underneath my glass house_

_But I put it out of my mind_

_Long enough to call it courage_

_To live without a lifeline._

_I bend the definition of faith_

_to exonerate my blind eye_

_‘Til the sirens sound, I’m safe_.

 – _Earth_ , Sleeping At Last

* * *

 

 

_3 July 2017._

 

Lemrina lay on the floor amidst the scattered drifts of pink hair, smiling.

They’d been careful– oh so careful– to keep sharp objects away from her (as though she would be so disrespectful of Slaine’s last wish as to make an attempt on her own life) that she had needed this long to sneak a pair of scissors from the embroidery kit a maid had brought in– “To pass the time more pleasantly, Highness.”

All it had taken was a moment of inattention from the well-meaning woman for Lemrina to hide her prize in the folds of her skirt. She should tell her sister to be stricter with the attendants. She wouldn’t, but she should.

It had been difficult, hacking off her hair with those tiny scissors. But she had had to do it. There was a reason mourning customs were so common in Terran cultures. Loss should be visible to all, should it not?

Of course, the second she were to request mourning clothes or some such thing, her _dear_ sister would happily grant them to her. That was precisely why she hadn’t, and never would.

In a few moments, someone would find her on the floor here, and she would be placed _ever so delicately_ back into her chair, the severed hair cleared away, everything back to the neat state of artificial perfection it usually stewed in. But they couldn’t take away the obvious mark of grief, of defiance, that she had carved into her own appearance.

Oh, the pretty lies her sweet, perfect sister had spun to keep her here, locked away on a high shelf like some fragile porcelain doll. ‘I was sick, confused, injured, deceived, kept isolated,’ ‘I said terrible, vicious things because of the lies they caged me in,’ ‘The moment I understood, I broke free.’ ’I deeply regret allowing myself to be used to stir up such horrible violence.’

Didn’t the stupid, noble, _stupid_ girl realize how false and thin it all sounded? Why take such vast, foolish risks for Lemrina’s sake? _Why protect me, why keep me secret?_

She didn’t have to ask. She knew. It was because her lovely sister had decided that was the right thing to do. And so, the darling little angel would cling stubbornly to it until she made it reality, or until it curled around her throat and strangled her as surely as the war should have.

It made some base part of Lemrina’s soul burn with the desire to claw those pretty blue eyes out.

 

≠≠≠

 

The boardwalk was mostly empty, with one or two people fading off into the distance. A broad expanse of stony beach stretched to the shore– likely a rubble dump. Perhaps in the future, when this place was more than a UFE outpost, it would be busier. Inaho had never understood the appeal himself, but many human beings seemed drawn to water. This would be a good site for a seaside town.

“Was it necessary to bring me out here, presuming that you don’t want to discuss the scenery?”

“It’s a nice sunny day out here and I want to talk somewhere that’s not a tiny little office, what more reason should you need?” Rayet snapped. “Anyway, how’s the eye?”

“That is the fifth time I’ve been asked that in the past four weeks.”

“Don’t be evasive! You do that all the time; it’s a shitty diversionary tactic. Hell, I’d have thought you– of all people– would be better at something involving tactics. Answer the question.”

“I am fine. There is no need to worry.”

“It’s the job of people who care about you to worry about you, no matter how stupid it is. Spiffy new uniform, by the way.”

“It is merely a side effect of my promotion, not my own choice.”

Rayet rolled her eyes. “Y’know, most people would say ‘Thank you’ or something like that.” She leaned over the railing, resting her arms on it. “Funny, isn’t it? Kill a hundred nobodies in uniforms and the brass treats you like you’re some kind of weird trained animal doing a trick for them, but shoot the right guy in the face and suddenly they can’t get enough of you.”

Inaho assessed the statement, ignoring the crawling chill it brought to the back of his neck. _That night on the beach, harsh floodlights, a resigned smile, welcoming him to put a bullet right above those brilliant eyes._ “If… you envy my position, I can assure you”–

Rayet snorted. “Jealous? Of you? Fuck no.” She turned, eyes on the horizon. “I’m bitter. Not about that. About… how arbitrary it all is.” Her voice grew quiet as she continued. “I hate war. I hate killing.”

“You did nothing worse than any other combatant. Everyone does what they have to do in battle”–

“That’s why I hate it. War takes people and turns them into… game pieces to capture for points, or something. And then you’re stuck with everyone trying to kill everyone else because that’s just how things go in war, and it never ends!” Her violet eyes flared as they caught the sunlight. “You see the death toll numbers and they’re just pixels on a screen, but– every one of those was a human being, with a home, with a family, with a life of their own that they were living until one day it was just gone! And what’s left instead? Nothing but emptiness.”

Inaho could think of no response to this, and so elected to remain silent, watching her.

“Ah, it’s not like I’m saying anything new about war. Everyone knows this shit. Not that it stops us.” Rayet laughed, dry and sharp. “Isn’t it just great, what we humans do to each other?”

“War, as a method of conflict resolution, is a constant in human history. Only the scale has changed. On an individual level, we can not alter either of these factors.”

“Is that your way of telling me not to feel guilty about it? Actually, no, never mind. What I mean to say is… thanks. You gave me something to hold on to when I was ready to fall apart. That you would reach out to a stupid, rash, violent girl like me, who wasn’t even one of you, means a lot.” She looked at him, a small smile on her lips. “Humans are humans. Life is life. And that’s valuable. I’m just glad that there was someone as stubborn as I am ready to drill that into my thick head.”

“I merely said what was appropriate to the situation.”

Rayet rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, ‘I’m no hero’ and so on. Just accept gratitude when it’s offered.”

Inaho considered that for a moment, and decided that Rayet’s position was likely correct. “You’re welcome, then.”

Rayet looked away again. She remained silent, staring off into the distance, for several minutes. Then, without warning, she spoke. “You want to know the real reason I brought you out here to talk?”

“Yes.”

“Because I wanted to talk to you alone. No UFE buzzards circling to listen in. What I want to say to my friend is my business, not theirs. I’m not a pawn, with no life of my own to live that’s not under their thumb.” She paused, picking at a splinter in the rail. “You ever feel like a pawn, out there in the field?”

“I never considered it. I did what was necessary to preserve the lives of those important to me, and those of fellow soldiers.”

Rayet sighed ruefully. “You’re better at this than I am, then.”

Inaho blinked. “At what?”

“Handling it. In the fighting, it didn’t matter. I knew what I was, who I was– I was a soldier, an avenger, killing the Martians that murdered my family. I wasn’t just fighting. I was on a _crusade_. But what the fuck good does that do in peacetime?” She bowed her head. “Look at me. I’m such a fucking hypocrite. I just said I hated killing, didn’t I? And now here I am, saying I was happy to kill dozens of Martians during the war. But neither of those is a lie. I feel them both at the same time. What does that make me? Why am I even asking you?”

“It is… typical for people to reach out to those close to them in times of distress.”

“That doesn’t make it make any better!” Then she closed her eyes. “Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped like that. Snarling at you won’t help. You may have the EQ of a brick, but you don’t deserve that.” Her fingers tightened around the boardwalk railing. “I just… don’t know anymore.”

“…If you require factual information” Inaho said slowly, feeling uncharacteristically lost, “then I may be able to help you”–

Rayet interrupted him with a short, dry laugh. “You’re a really a good guy, you know that? At least, once you get past the layers of bluntness, weirdness, stubbornness, and know-it-all superiority. Deep down, you’re actually pretty nice. And don’t let anyone tell you different.”

“Thank you.”

“I insult you freely, boss you around, and you thank me?”

“You also complimented me. Earlier, you pointed out that compliments should be replied to with thanks. So therefore, I am thanking you for”–

“I get it, I get it,” she said, waving a hand at him. She pushed away from the rail, smiling. “It’s been good talking with you again. But I’m sure you have pencil-pushing to get back to, and supervisors to ignore. Good luck at that! Not that you need it. I’m off now.”

“My work is of little concern, but thank you. Stay safe.” He held out his hand expectantly. Rayet looked down in confusion for a split second– and then smiled broadly, took his hand, and shook it firmly.

The smile remained on her face even as she turned to leave. Her step was light as she walked away– until she stopped and faced him again. Waving, she shouted, “Don’t worry about me! I’ll see you again sometime, soldier boy!”

He returned the wave, watching until her silhouette flickered from view in the sunlight.

 

≠≠≠

 

Slaine twisted the edge of the blanket between his fingers.

 _Engaging_.

_A challenge._

As though he could stand on even ground with Kaizuka and actually have a chance.

It was one of the more distasteful forms of mockery that Slaine had ever been forced to endure. And worse– it seemed that Kaizuka might actually be genuine in his ludicrous sentiments. Or perhaps he simply preferred subtler methods of torment than most.

Well. It didn’t matter, anyway.

Kaizuka and his machinations were entirely irrelevant. Slaine would live on here in service of the Princess’ last, most generous wish for him, regardless of Kaizuka.

He twisted the blanket again. The ridges of the weave pressed against his skin, rough, unforgiving.

What day was it, what month, what year?

How long ago had he eaten? There was always that empty, aching hollowness in his chest. It was no evidence one way or another.

The fabric was taut around his hands, binding, like–

                                                                                     – _Shackles_ –

His body lurched involuntarily. Dying? No, no, he couldn’t, that would be disloyal, _disloyal_ , he’d betrayed her enough times that his loyalty was a tarnished, worthless thing but–

The sheets tore between his fingers.

_I will never–_

He snarled, grip tightening, yanking the rip wider.

_How dare–_

Ragged fibers hung loosely from the torn edges.

_Don’t touch me–_

He ripped them away.

_I am not–_

The hole gaped open.

_They think I would kill myself? Strip myself of the suffering I deserve when there can be no atonement, no forgiveness?_

Shredded fragments littered the bed, the floor.

_Just leave me be!_

Every tear felt as though he were ripping through his own skin, his sinew and muscle. He bared his teeth in savage satisfaction.

 _I am beyond your games_.

This feeble attempt at precaution was disgusting. What a neat little life they had organized for him in this tomb! A special cage built just for him, a carefully designed ending for the vicious, tragic farce that was his life.

But that was justice, wasn’t it?

Yes.

Slaine sank slowly back down onto the bed, sprawling among the ruined remnants of his sheets.

It was so quiet here. So empty.

He was so…

                                                                                     …tired…

 

≠≠≠

 

_10 July 2017_

 

The intercom buzzed. Helene glanced up from her work. “Yes?”

“It’s Valkyr, my Lady. May I request entrance?”

“Certainly.” The door hissed open.

“I presume that you already know the subject of this visit,” Valkyr said, walking to the desk.

“Yes, I’m eager to hear your results.” _Paper files? An excellent choice for such sensitive information. Now, time for a test._ “Though I must ask– paper? Aren’t we far past the days of paper files? And how did you even get paper?”

“The new Empress’s peace has opened up more room for interplanetary commerce. As for why: paper cannot be hacked or traced. This is information that could have this entire clan condemned for treason. I wished to ensure that it would remain secret, and could be destroyed quickly and completely if necessary.”

Helene smiled. _Passed with flying colors._ “You prove your worth over and again, Valkyr. Now– what have the worms and the birds found for you?”

Valkyr spread several sheets across the desk surface, and handed one to Helene. “This is a list of the underground associations– gangs, clubs, unofficial bar gatherings, and so on– that either openly espouse resistance to the Crown or responded positively to the concept of an alteration to the current system. It is notable that eighty-seven percent of those people that I, or my contacts, spoke with among the lower classes expressed anger or resentment towards Earth. Seventy-six percent agreed with the proposition that Versian possession of territory on Earth would improve their lives and the lives of those around them.”

“This is quite a long list. Well done. Those numbers, too, speak loudly in my favor.” Helene tapped a finger thoughtfully against the paper. “So the gutter rats would fall in behind me in a well-trained hoard if I bait them with the right breadcrumbs. As I thought. But what of the nobility? Who there has reason to break with their darling Empress?”

“The propaganda minister likely holds some resentment.”

“The _former_ propaganda minister. Hinleigh. What a foul old slug. But he could have some use, especially since the Empress was fool enough to offend him so deeply with that casually summary dismissal.” Helene snorted disdainfully. “That empty-headed doll played right into my hands when she dissolved the propaganda department. Did it not occur to her even _once_ that she might need to persuade her people at some point? I do enjoy the opportunity to snap up Gilzeria’s remarkable propaganda machine, though.”

“The Empress did leave herself remarkably open.”

“Perhaps,” Helene sighed, “she believes that the loyalty of the Counts is secure enough that she need not fear resistance. I am unsure whether to be amused or saddened by how little she understands the political game.”

“It does work to your advantage, my Lady.”

“Yes, it does. If my opponent leaves me an opening, I will take it. I will need such openings, with the tenacious loyalty that most of my peers hold to the throne.”

“There are some of the Saazbaum clan’s allies still in existence, though. The Raleigh line”–

“The _late_ Raleigh line, you mean. The former Count and her oldest four were bold– stupid, to get themselves fried by Terrans, but bold. Pity the youngest had to be the only one out of her five to survive. I can’t _stand_ him, that sniveling coward. He’s no Raleigh. He folded the second the Empress ordered it. He’s been too terrified to do anything since he inherited the title. He’s useless to me.”

“But if he could be persuaded”–

“The only thing that will persuade him is power. He will hide behind whoever is the strongest at the moment. When I become the safer bet, then he will join me. Not a second earlier. Kesselar and Andregaan, however, are more likely to be persuadable. They have the proper pride in their station. Not part of Saazbaum’s allies, but still some of the first to attack Earth. They might have obeyed the order to surrender Terran territory, but they were reluctant. If I offer them the chance to regain it, I have them.”

“My Lady, what will you do about those who, at least initially, you can not persuade to your side? Like Raleigh, as you pointed out. That they are obedient, or weak, or fearful, does not reduce the number of their soldiers.”

Helene smiled, a baring of teeth that was empty of warmth. “Our _sweet_ Empress so hates war that she would never order her loyalists to attack me. She will attempt to placate me through peaceful negotiations until the day I rip her lovely white throat out. As for the rest, they fell in behind a gilded Terran and his puppet Princess easily enough, as much as they hated it, when Earth was at the stakes. With a true-blooded Versian in the lead, they shall surely follow.”

 

≠≠≠

 

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

Lemrina’s voice was cold, but barely a sliver as icy as her eyes.

“Someone needs to mourn your scapegoat, if you won’t. I’ve always been a substitute for you when no one better could be found– so why not for this too?”

 _He’s not dead!_ Asseylum wanted to scream, _he’s not dead and oh, how I wish I could tell you, alleviate even just a little of your pain, but_ –

Asseylum looked at Lemrina’s face, the delicate tremble of her lips, the wet gleam in her eyes, the furious tension in her jaw. The ragged short-shorn hair that Lemrina had cut away with her two hands and a pair of embroidery scissors, slowly and painfully. What kind of strange, desperate grief had driven her to this?

_I wish I could tell you Slaine is alive, alive but broken and caged and hidden away. By my own hands. Sister, is there yet space in your heart for you to hate me more than you already do? Surely, if you knew, you would find some. But I can say nothing._

Out loud, she said, “Sister, please– I know you cared deeply for him, but is it not reasonable for me to be concerned by such dramatic displays of sorrow?”

“Of course, how _rude_ of me to weep and mourn, to make such a _show_ out of grief!” Lemrina spat. “I already said it, you don’t understand. You never will. So stop draping your self-serving sympathy around me. I don’t want it.” Her fingers danced over her chair controls, and she began to turn away.

“Wait. I am merely worried for your wellbeing. I most certainly don’t want you to conceal your sorrow. I do not claim to understand what you feel, but I know that you…” Asseylum paused, swallowed painfully, “I know that you loved him, and”–

“Loved? No. _Love_.” Lemrina said, in a whisper that was just sharp enough to carry. She did not turn around, and she did not look back as she rolled away.

 _I didn’t want to lie,_ Asseylum thought desperately, watching Lemrina’s silhouette shrink into the distance. _I didn’t want to lie to you, or to anyone. I thought that once the fighting was over, that would be the end of it– but it hasn’t been. You are in terrible pain, and I cannot help you because I am the source of that pain. You suffer, Vers suffers, and Earth suffers._

She twisted her hands together, tense and white-knuckled.

_I must do something. But…_

_What_ can _I do?_

 

≠≠≠

 

_14 July 2017_

 

“You have continued to frequently refuse the food provided to you. Is the quality insufficient?”

Troyard did not answer. In fact, Troyard did not even look at him. Instead, his gaze remained fixed on the empty air.

“If you do not provide feedback on this, your meals cannot be adjusted to better suit your tastes.” An obvious fact– but what else could Inaho have said that was not equally obvious?

Troyard’s expression did not change, and he remained still and silent in his chair, the only movement the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

This continued unresponsiveness was unsurprising. It was well within his predictions that Troyard did not speak to him– the former Count operated mostly on emotion, according to Inaho’s observations, and so would not be eager to engage in casual conversation with the man who had defeated him.

But still…

“The guards report that you have been generally cooperative and compliant with them. It is good to hear that you are adapting to your situation.”

Troyard continued to show no signs of even acknowledging Inaho’s presence.

“If you desire any other physical comforts or accommodations, you can inform the warden or one of the guards”–

“You… are… my enemy.” Troyard’s voice as he interrupted was slow and quiet, but commanded such complete attention that Inaho had no trouble understanding him. “You said it yourself. What more is there to it? Leave me be.” His expression remained the same, and he stayed motionless across the table, eyes downcast and vacant.

Inaho blinked. There was no response he could think of to that statement. Bringing back his own words from… how long ago was it, now? Years. Those early days of the fighting felt so far away.

But they weren’t, were they? There were still renegade landing castles occupying territory on Earth– fewer, now, than six months ago, but still present. The peace treaty itself was less than a year old. The UFE forces not engaged in continuing combat were still occupied in digging up hidden Martian bases and weapons caches. Civilians had barely started move out of UFE-held territory and resettle.

Looking at the unmoving, silent man across the table, Inaho realized: for Slaine Troyard, the war still hadn’t ended. It likely never would. It clung to the dark circles under his eyes, glinted from the edges of the chain hanging from his neck, formed the emptiness in his gaze.

Slaine did not speak again for the rest of the visit.

Inaho allowed the silence to continue, unbroken.

 

≠≠≠

 

_8 August 2017_

 

“Hi, can you get me a contact line to my friend? Rayet Areash, she’s been serving with the 17nth division over in”–

“Yeah, yeah, on it. Areash?” Inko nodded. “Areash, Rayet… you wanted to talk to her?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good luck, then, kid. According to the logbook here, she’s been absent without leave for five weeks. Six this Wednesday.”

Inko blinked. “Ah– what?”

“I know you heard me, Amifumi.”

“But she– she only transferred to another platoon!”

The desk sergeant jerked his thumb at the screen in front of him. “Not going by this. There’s no transfer logged here. Been gone since July.”

“But she…” Inko repeated helplessly, her voice trailing off as she realized she didn’t have an end to that sentence. Her shoulders slumped.

“Anything else you need help with? I only got so much time on my hands, so if you’re done here, get a move on.”

“Um, yes, thank you. Have a nice day.” Inko left the room in a daze. Rayet had vanished? More than a month ago? And she hadn’t noticed?

Sure, Rayet had always been rather… taciturn, so Inko hadn’t worried too much when Rayet didn’t send any messages after her reassignment and transfer.

The transfer Rayet hadn’t made.

 _Alright, keep it together_ , Inko told herself. _First, see if anyone else knows anything about this_.

 

_Subject: Rayet?     From: Inko, at 3:43 pm     To: Calm, Inaho, Nina, Yuki_

_Has anyone talked to Rayet recently? I just tried to contact her through military because she wasn’t answering my texts, and found out that she never got reassigned. She’s been missing since July in the records._

_~_

_Subject: Re: Rayet?     From: Nina, at 3:45 pm     To: Inko_

_What? No, she hasn’t said anything to me. She’s missing? She didn’t get transferred?_

_Subject: Re: Re: Rayet?     From: Inko, at 3:46 pm     To: Nina_

_Yeah. She mustve been lying about the transfer._

_Subject: Re: Re: Re: Rayet?     From: Nina, at 3:46 pm     To: Inko_

_Why?_

_Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Rayet?     From: Inko, at 3:47 pm     To: Nina_

_Wish I knew._

_~_

_Subject: Re: Rayet?     From: Yuki, at 4:02 pm     To: Inko_

_i thought she was with you! i’ll ask nao if he heard anything._

_~_

_Subject: Re: Rayet?     From: Calm, at 5:19 pm     To: Inko_

_wat rayets gone? thought she got deployd smewher else or smth?_

 

_Subject: Re: Re: Rayet?     From: Inko, at 5:20 pm     To: Calm_

_No. Has she talked to you at all?_

 

_Subject: Re: Re: Re: Rayet?     From: Calm, at 5:22 pm     To: Inko_

_nope. if she didnt say anythign to you why would she go near me about it?_

~

_Subject: Re: Rayet?     From: Inaho, at 6:03 pm     To: Inko_

_I spoke with her at the beginning of July. That is all I have heard from her since all of you were placed on active duty._

 

_Subject: Re: Re: Rayet?     From: Inko, at 6:03 pm     To: Inaho_

_What did she say?_

_Subject: Re: Re: Re: Rayet?     From: Inaho, at 6:04 pm     To: Inko_

_She talked about the war. She seemed upset._

_Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Rayet?     From: Inko, at 6:05 pm     To: Inaho_

_Why didn’t you say something about it?!_

_Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Rayet?     From: Inaho, at 6:06 pm     To: Inko_

_It didn’t seem important._

_~_

Inko suppressed the impulse to throw her phone at the wall. _Didn’t seem important? Of all the stupid, inconsiderate–_

 _Slow down. Take a deep breath._ She looked sadly at the screen. _You know he didn’t mean for it to sound that way. He probably meant exactly what he said: at the time, it hadn’t appeared to be significant enough to tell anyone else about._

But, maybe if he’d just mentioned that something seemed off about Rayet, they could have talked to her, found out what was wrong…

Inko shook herself. She wasn’t going to go down that road. Yeah, everything is clearer in hindsight, but getting angry over the past wouldn’t _change_ it. She had to deal with the here and now.

_Plan time. In half an hour, everyone will be back here, and we can talk this over then. I’ll get Nina on tracking any internet mentions– maybe Rayet used her UFE id somewhere. Calm can check with his network of engineering buddies, see if anyone’s seen her. Yuki’s made a lot of friends with the civilians everywhere, so I’m sure they’d be happy to pass along anything they might have heard. Inaho has access to a bunch of restricted files, so I can get him to make sure Rayet wasn’t sent on some secret mission. And I can also tell him that “it didn’t seem important” is probably one of the worst things you can say to someone who is already upset._

Inko smiled longsufferingly down at her phone. That was just the way Inaho was: so caught up in his own head that he never thought about things– or, at least, the right things. But at the same time, he was unflinchingly genuine. If he said something, he meant it. She wouldn’t ever want him to stop that, even if it sometimes led him into saying some pretty stupid shit. Rayet had liked that air of candidness too…

Rayet, who Inko apparently hadn’t known nearly as well as she thought she had. Rayet, who would just run off without telling anyone where she was going, or when she would be back. Without even letting them know if she was okay, that she hadn’t been kidnapped or murdered or something!

 _Slow down_ , Inko told herself again. _Rayet’s not the type to let something horrible happen to her without making a giant obvious mess. If she vanished, it is probably because… she wanted to._

 _She wanted to leave without a word_.

Inko bit her lip. _Why? What was so bad that you couldn’t just talk to us? Everything was fine!_

Except, it hadn’t been. Obviously. She wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her head on them.

_Rayet, I’m sorry._

_What did I miss?_

_Please be okay._

 

≠≠≠

 

_9 August 2017_

 

Rayet frowned at the crinkled piece of paper flattened on the counter in front of her. She tapped it restlessly with the pencil in her hand.

 _I need some time away from everything_ – she began to write, but then erased the words furiously.

 _I’m sorry–_ was erased as well, along with _I don’t know–._

Rayet sighed irritably, and muttered, “What do I say? What can I say?”

It took several more false starts, but eventually she slapped the pencil down on the table and surveyed her finished note.

 

_I’m fine. Don’t follow me. Don’t look for me. I know how to take care of myself. Don’t worry too much. I’ll see you again soon._

_–Rayet_

 

She could only hope it was enough. It would have to be. Even just this carried the risk of them using it to track her down.

“You done there, missy?”

Rayet sealed the envelope shut. “Yes.”

“So, I’m to make sure this gets to the Deucalion– or at least to someone named… Kaizuka?”

“Yes.”

The woman tugged thoughtfully on the edge of her headscarf. “That’s a decent ways away from here. Interesting friends you must have. Want to leave me an address that I can forward any responses to for you?”

“No.”

“Talkative, aren’t you? Ah well, I’ll make sure your message gets through. Travel safe, kiddo!”

“Thanks.” Rayet slung her backpack back over her shoulders. As it settled into place, she turned and faced the road before her.

The breeze picked up, carrying the smells and sounds of thousands of people just going about their daily lives, without fear, without being prepared for death to rain down on them from above. She stopped, back to the wind, and, for a moment, simply breathed it in.

Then, she set her jaw, a look of determination flaring on her face. _No looking back._

Dust flew up around her boots as she marched onwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you couldn’t already tell, I am essentially ignoring ep. 24.5 and all extra materials that are not part of the show itself, unless they are useful to what I am trying to do with this fic.
> 
> Sadly, I can't say when the next update will be. I'm hoping to be able to update by September 19th, but there's no guarantee. I'll try to stay on a weekly (or at least biweekly) schedule. If you want to see progress updates, you can check my [fic tag](http://ambyrfire.tumblr.com/tagged/fic%3A-bfas) on tumblr. Tell me– do you guys prefer longer chapters at longer intervals, or shorter chapters more often?


	5. 1.5 | Katabasis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: hallucinations, dissociation, derealization, brief mention of animal death.

* * *

  

_Katabasis: n. A military retreat; a gradual descent; a journey into the underworld. From the ancient Greek “to go downwards.”_

 

* * *

 

Kaizuka was there, sitting across the flimsy table and moving chess pieces around the board. Again.

Unless this was another nightmare.

Slaine watched blood drip onto the chessboard, smear over the white pieces.

He breathed in, and then out, slowly.

Dream or real, it didn’t matter. It would be over soon.

A trail of blood snaked across the table and ran down the table leg, pooling in a red splotch on the floor.

The air tasted of copper.

The blood was gone.

His eyes hurt from the brilliance of the single light overhead. He wished this phantom of Kaizuka would just go away already. Then he could just go to sleep. Or wake up. He didn’t care which.

He’d been wrong; the blood was still there. But now it was drying, cracked, dull. Like the eye, like Kaizuka’s single red-brown eye, staring at him blankly.

Slaine suppressed a shudder.

The thin prison clothes provided no barrier for the draft that prickled chilly over his skin. It cut right through his flesh, as though the heart stubbornly pumping blood through his carcass mattered not at all, biting to the bone, eating warmth. It was as sharp, as merciless, as the touch of metal against his skin when they handcuffed him, but _more_. Consuming. Light was cold. Darkness was cold. Concrete and brick and stone and cloth and metal and water. Cold.

He breathed in, out.

Chess pieces clinked quietly.

He dug his nails into the back of his hand, blooms of pain against the numbness.

There was movement at the other side of the table. Chessboard packed away. Dried-blood stare. Handcuffs. _Clink_.

The sky. It hurt to look at it, but Slaine still kept his eyes fixed on the scrap beyond the bars as it moved past. Blue, so blue, and smelling of ocean waves. He breathed it in, savoring the scents of salt and sun and green growing things, so unlike the stale air allowed to him in this prison.

It didn’t matter if it was real or not.

He didn’t deserve pleasant dreams, but he would savor what little he was granted nonetheless.

 

≠≠≠

 

_10 October 2017_

 

What there was of the reconstructed Moonbase was spare and stark– little more than a large oxygen tank. It was a messy patchwork of shiny new metal grafted onto blasted wreckage, and the salvage operations hadn’t advanced that far yet, but the place still filled Asseylum with a strange, bitter nostalgia.

She’d spent the greater part of the last two years of her life here, and she did not even remember the majority of them. And what little she did… it had been happy, most of it. That sheltered, contented fog of forgetfulness.

She should have known, right from the moment she woke, that something was wrong. In truth, she had, but it was easier to ignore it than to wonder what had brought the sad, weary set to Slaine’s shoulders, the mournful look to Eddelrittuo’s eyes.

And the easier path was almost never the right one.

A hand on her shoulder made Asseylum start, but it was only Klancain. “Everything is in place,” he said softly. “Are you ready?”

“Yes. Thank you for asking. Send the signal for the doors to be opened.” This was much more than just a ceremony. Oh, there was the staging, the proper pageantry, but that was nothing compared to what it truly meant to Earth and Vers alike.

A step closer to mending the terrible rift between the planets and their peoples.

The doors began to swing open. Asseylum steeled herself and strode to the podium, fixed beneath the spotlights in the center of the stage.

“As Empress of Vers, and according to the mutual agreement between the Vers Empire and the United Forces of Earth, I order that the final repair to the Moonbase Hypergate shall commence!”

Outside, visible through the broad bay window that consumed most of the wall, the massive machines– Aldnoah-driven, naturally– tightened the tether cables and began to reel the last chunk of shattered moon rock into place.

It had taken many days for the salvage crews to gather the pieces of the sundered gate, but even longer to get the UFE to agree to rebuilding it. Many on both sides did not think it possible, but Asseylum had been certain. It was not powered by Aldnoah, after all, and so activating it may be as simple a matter as re-assembling the far-flung pieces. Even Klancain had been skeptical when she first told him of the idea– but she had felt it, deep in her bones. She did not hope this would work: she knew. This was right.

The crowd– the blue of UFE uniforms, the gray and red of Martian nobility– was rapt and silent as the expansive, intricate pattern of the Hypergate, fitted together like the pieces of a puzzle, slowly aligned with the last fragment.

As the jagged stones drew closer, the machines pulled out of its path, the cables snapping away. Momentum was the only thing guiding the rock, as the sundered remains hurtled towards their rightful place–

And the edges crashed together in a great, soundless rush, a flare of dust flying weightlessly into the empty vacuum of space.

For a breathless second, the gate stayed dark.

Then–

Pillars of light shot into the dark sky in a blaze of brilliance.

Asseylum listened to the gasps of awe from the crowd, rising high on the wave of exhilarated joy that surged in her chest.

Earth and Vers were connected once more.

 

≠≠≠

 

_13 October 2017_

 

Helene simply _loved_ parties. The preposterous pageantry, the simpering pleasantries, the neatly minced words– it was all such a _grand_ game.

“Greetings, your Lordship! You look in good health!” _For a bloated leech who has not shifted from his seat willingly in twenty years_. “It is an honor to finally meet you! I deeply admire the work you have done for the state of Vers– especially under our late emperor Gilzeria.”

Lord Hinleigh huffed. “Likewise, likewise. I am merely grateful to serve our glorious empire.”

“I’m sure that…” she pursed her lips, making a show of picking the most _diplomatic_ word, “ _retirement_ is treating you kindly. A well-deserved rest, after your years of effort.”

“Retirement? Hardly.” Hinleigh huffed. “I was dismissed! Most dishonorably!”

Helene resisted a smile. _Hook, line, and sinker_. “But surely, it was merely a recognition that you have served loyally for long enough?”

“Would it were so! But no, alas and alack, shame has been placed upon my clan! One day the Empress harshly informed me that she would have no further need for my services, and terminated my office! Dismantled the entire propaganda department! I am left with ruins, nothing!”

“But surely,” Helene purred, “there are many more applications for your particular area of expertise.”

“The Empress would not hear of it.” Hinleigh waved a hand officiously. “I will not bore you with overmuch detail, but suffice it to say that she has made her position more than clear.”

 _Lead him, lead him…_ “Perhaps the Empress is merely fully confident in the love her people hold for her?”

Hinleigh shook his head. “I know the ways of the rabble. They are shallow and capricious. It will not be long before they turn, and bite the hand that feeds them.”

“You _are_ the most experienced among us in their ways. I fear…” Helene sighed theatrically. “I fear that you are correct. And…is it not such a pity that their ingratitude must fall upon us as well?”

Hinleigh blinked his ugly, bulging frog eyes. “Us as well?”

 _Has your hearing gone the way of your brains, you old amphibian?_ “Yes, sadly. The rabid peons will turn their rage on all those of noble birth, most certainly. They will consider us guilty by association, and howl for our destruction too.”

“Ah Yes, yes, clever observation– the Empress neglects to understand the necessity for a strong guiding hand.”

“A pity, then, that there is no one near the throne who does. Ah well, hopefully our gracious Empress will learn, given time.”

“We do not have time!” Hinleigh chuffed. “I know the changeable nature of those creatures. They are mercurial and stupid, and chase whatever is put before their noses. Their attention span is as short as their temper. Oh, if only I still had my position!”

Helene shaped her face into the properly scandalized expression. “Are you implying, Lord, that Empress Asseylum should be replaced?”

“What? No, no! Of course not! Nothing could shake her reign.”

“I know, my good Lord. My apologies. I overreacted. You were merely voicing your concerns– concerns that all wise peers should share, truly. It would be excellent for the health of the empire if you had the ear of the throne.” Helene bowed ingratiatingly. _I have him._

“All is forgiven, Count Morgaine. I thank you for your kind words of praise. It has been a delight speaking to you.”

“You are very generous with your gratitude, Lord Hinleigh. I thank you for honoring me with your time. I look forward to the time we shall meet again.” _Which, if all goes as planned, will be when you come crawling to me, begging me to accept your services and vow of fealty._

As she wove away through the crowd, Helene allowed herself a small smile. The Empress may have her precious Hypergate, but Helene would soon something vastly more important: the hearts and minds of the people that silly girl claimed to love so much.

Every doubt, every crack in the loyalty of another noble, even the gate to that dirty, ugly planet– each and every one brought Helene another step closer to the throne.

 

≠≠≠

 

Slaine coughed. Again.

Dully, he was aware that his body was riddled with a crackling, feverish ache.

It didn’t matter.

He was alone, in this giant echoing place. Whenever a guard paced by, he made sure to curl up quietly and appear to be sleeping. Sometimes, he might even have actually been asleep. He didn’t care. Consciousness was a dizzyingly difficult thing to maintain, so he didn’t bother.

Everything was so much more comfortable with a thick layer of distance between him and the rest of the world.

A distant rumble came from somewhere outside the cell. Gunfire? He lifted his heavy head, but –of course– could see nothing other than the empty gray walls.

It felt like, if he were to reach out and touch them, they would disintegrate like cheap set pieces beneath his fingers, leaving nothingness behind. He knew, remotely, that there was a world out there that other people lived in, but it was beyond him to picture it in his head. It all seemed so false. Was he even awake, right now, in this very moment? If he weren’t, that would explain the muted, dreamlike quality to the world around him, the unreality, the hollowness.

He tried to breathe in, but the air tore at his throat instead, bringing on a coughing fit so violent that it left him retching emptily.

A noise– artillery?– somewhere– maybe. He went completely still. _Exposed, I’m too exposed here, they can see me, they can find me_ –

He hauled himself up on trembling arms. There had to be somewhere, something out of sight of the bars–

 _There_.

 

≠≠≠

 

_14 October 2017._

 

Inaho placed his feet carefully as he went down the stone stairs, keeping his hand on the wall to his left. Seven months was enough to acclimate to the lack of stereovision on a basic level, but in situations such as this, he preferred to err on the side of caution.

Erring on the side of caution was the main reason he was here, and not waiting in the glass room as per usual– though most would not likely consider visiting a prisoner in his cell “caution.” The guards had taken a fair amount of convincing.

That Troyard was eating poorly was not a surprise; by this point, an abrupt change to healthier eating habits would have been more alarming than encouraging. And the illness…

Inaho should have known to expect something of the kind. In a way, he had, for the probability of being susceptible to disease was higher for someone, like Troyard, who had not been exposed to pathogens for a long period of time. The possibility had always been abstract, though. Now, it was real, and even if it was little more than a cold, any negative trend in Troyard’s health was worth concern. Thus, he had chosen to forego the visitation room in favor of causing as little disruption as possible.

A square of light on the wall caught his eye as he made his way down the hallway to Troyard’s cell. As it was on his blind side, he had to pause to look up at the source– a small, high window. The bars across it seemed unwarranted, considering the inhuman agility and flexibility required for climbing through an opening that narrow.

Were there any other windows? He hadn’t noticed any so far. If that were the case…

Was this tiny window the only glimpse of the sky that Troyard had for the ten months he had been confined here?

Inaho shook the thought off. Such baseless speculation was simply unproductive.

The cell appeared to be empty when he reached it, but that was no cause for concern. Escape was highly unlikely, and there were a number of places out of sight of the front of the room. As such, Inaho let himself in.

It was a very sparsely furnished room: the bed was the only thing there. Troyard had requested nothing else. Was it a habit acquired from the obligate simplicity of Martian living, Inaho wondered?

He was distracted by a cough from direction of the recessed washroom– the lack of a door was excessive, in Inaho’s opinion, but he understood the necessity for such precautions even if he disliked them. The cough was a poor sign– short illnesses rarely established such symptoms.

When he reached the threshold, he received unwanted confirmation of his negative assessment: Troyard, huddled in the middle of the floor pale and shivering.

Troyard’s eyes slowly lifted to Inaho, gaze hazy and unfocused. Then, he was seized by a coughing fit, violent enough that it shook his thin frame and left him gasping and heaving. This was _clearly_ much more than a mild cold.

First, to get him off of the cold, hard concrete. Why Troyard was even in here when he was so obviously ill was a mystery. Inaho moved to lift him to his feet–

But as Inaho reached for him, Troyard jerked back. He snarled “Don’t _fucking_ touch me” and shoved Inaho away with surprising force. Inaho was more surprised than actually physically affected, and had no trouble remaining upright. Yet, the shove was strong enough to send Troyard sprawling on the ground.

Inaho stared, frozen, as Troyard struggled feebly to right himself. He fought to get his arms beneath his body and push up off the floor, but fell back down with a small, choked sound. _He can’t lift his own weight?_ Inaho shook himself, filed the shock away, and moved to lift Troyard again, fully expecting more enraged protests.

Interestingly, Troyard did not make a sound.

However, Inaho chose to ignore that in favor of a much more important detail: Troyard’s skin was hot to the touch, even through clothing.

He half-dragged, half-carried Troyard into the main area and hauled the unresisting man awkwardly onto the bed. The guards would need to be called, and Troyard would need to be moved to the medical room–

Inaho glanced back as he left the cell. It should have been nothing more than a last momentary check to reaffirm Troyard’s condition.

Should have been.

Instead, he saw–

It was difficult to find the words to truly describe what he saw.

Troyard had not moved. His eyes were unfocused, glazed, empty. His hair splayed around his face, melding into the white sheets beneath him, sheets that were barely lighter than the pale, pale color of his hand resting listlessly on them. His loose clothing remained twisted around his sprawled limbs, as though he could not muster the effort to shift to a more comfortable positon. If it were not for the fever flush high on his cheekbones, he would have been devoid of any evidence of living color.

It was strangely difficult to turn away.

 

≠≠≠

 

_15 October 2017_

 

Nothing. 

No one had been able to find even a _trace_ of a lead on Rayet’s location. She’d just packed up and vanished one day.

 _Not_ without a word, though.

Inko sighed, running a hand through her hair for what seemed like the millionth time– how many times had she done that, in the time since they had received that terse, handwritten letter?

Nina placed a comforting hand on her arm. “I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, if she sent that, then that means she was okay when it was sent– and like she said, she can take care of herself.”

“I know,” Inko said heavily, “but that doesn’t make it easier to sit here and do nothing.”

“Doing nothing’s better than being shot at. Or, at least– that’s what I think, anyway.” Nina twirled the end of her pigtail around her finger. “We could have been out in the field dodging that one Count’s– Perrin, was it?– people. I’d rather be here.”

“Yeah. I’m just… I just feel so restless.”

“Hey, do you want to go to that party tonight? Calm thought it sounded fun, and you could use a little fun to get all that energy out of your system.”

Inko stared into space for a moment, and then clapped her hands together firmly. “You know what, Nina? You’re absolutely right. That sounds _awesome_. Did… did Inaho say anything about whether or not he’d be there?”

“Him? At a party? Seriously? But no, he’s busy with some military thing or other.”

“’Some military thing?’ Aren’t we military? Why wouldn’t they tell you?”

Nina shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it had something to do with that last landing castle though.”

“I didn’t know that ‘getting promoted’ meant ‘you never get to see your friends or family ever again,’” Inko muttered.

“Peace takes work, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah. Well, see you tonight!”

~

It wasn’t a bad party. There was music, just loud enough to be heard over the back-and-forth of the hundred different conversations going on. Inko had a pleasant buzz going– if the UFE was going to throw high schoolers into the line of fire, they at least had the decency to put the international drinking age at eighteen– and she felt loose and light and ready.

There was just enough of a crowd that she could shake the rest of the Deucalion group pretty easily. She wove through the thick, churning chaos of warm bodies, suppressing her surge of guilt. Rayet wasn’t the only one who could vanish.

He was a nice guy, with a pleasant laugh and a quick wit and black hair and brown eyes – _close, close but not right, not Him_ whispered some little part of her from the back of her mind that she quickly crushed– and before long she had him pressed up against a wall as she leaned into the mouthy, biting kisses.

She had gotten good at this whole hook-up game in the months since the war. There was always someone who needed a quick distraction, a way to not feel empty for a night. You just had to put two of them in the right place to get a spark.

As their clothing scattered across her hotel room floor, her eyes caught on his scars– one a glancing line along the side of his neck, the other two solid rounds of scar tissue like bullet holes, one just below his hip and the other on the opposite thigh– and did it really matter if he had gotten them as a soldier or a civilian when there wasn’t really a difference between the two anymore? When children learned to carry guns, and run from shooting stars.

 _We’re all fucked-up messes_ , she thought as he rolled on a condom, her thumb moving in soothing circles on his hip. _Fucked-up messes made by a world where we never knew what peace even looked like, much less how to live in it. But I’m glad…_

 _I’m glad we can still have this_.

Their bodies moved together, and Inko let it take her away.

~

Morning was bright, and the guy– if she’d even asked his name, she’d already forgotten it– had the decency to be gone by the time she woke up. The bed was too comfortable to bother getting up yet, so she didn’t. The Deucalion’s scheduled launch time was 6 o’clock sharp. There was no need to hurry.

Soon enough, she would have to haul herself out of bed and down the stairs to the mess hall, and everyone would be waiting there, happy and waving and getting on with life.

 _If Rayet were here_ , Inko thought, an emotion too aching to be anger and too sharp to be sorrow welling in her chest, _she would probably say something like “Have fun?” and raise one eyebrow just a hair– meaning to tease, but revealing that she really did care enough to notice_.

But Rayet wasn’t here. There would be no raised eyebrows, no thinly veiled comments that somehow still flew over everyone else’s heads. Rayet had decided that she wanted to vanish without a trace, so, well, that was hardly _Inko’s_ problem.

 

≠≠≠

 

_17 October 2017._

 

Another strategy meeting. Inaho expected this one to be much like the others: focused on how to dispose of the remaining landing castles. Or rather, the _last_ remaining castle, as the surrender of Count Perrin’s forces had gone smoothly and required no use of force. The threat of the combined might of Earth and Mars had been sufficient.

This conference hall was one of the newest UFE buildings on the planet– the first completed after the war– but Inaho still failed to understand the purpose of the massive glass atrium. It was an indefensible structure, vulnerable to the slightest structural compromise, and would pose a danger to those within if it collapsed–

A sharp, heavy impact sounded from above. Instinctively, Inaho looked up, but there was nothing to be seen.

Instead, there was a matching thud on the ground. Belatedly, his eye tracked the noise–

The body of a gull laid there, motionless, neck twisted at a strange angle.

He stopped in his tracks, unable to tear his gaze away from it. The carelessly limp sprawl of its wings, the empty blankness of its eyes. It was an mysteriously, unsettling familiar picture. His heart, he realized, was beating far faster than his currently inactive state should merit.

“Don’t bother with that thing. The groundskeepers will get rid of it soon enough.”

Inaho jolted slightly, the lingering sensations much like being woken abruptly from a deep sleep. The man who had spoken to him– some official whose name Inaho had elected to forget– gave him an odd look. Was his peculiar physical reaction strong enough for others to notice? There was no time to consider it further, as the group filtered into the hall and drew him along with it–

And yet–

And yet, Inaho could not shake the strange, irrational fear that had filled him upon seeing that bird lying there, lifeless and broken on the ground.

 

≠≠≠

 

_19 October 2017_

 

“Understand, Empress, that we have our own people to feed. That is our highest priority.”

“I do understand this, General. But _I_ ask _you_ to understand that Vers has very, very little, and the halt of stolen imports from the war, while necessary, has left many in a state of struggle. Now that the Hypergate is functional once more, the time required for trade is much smaller. In mere hours, a full shipment of aldnoah cores can be delivered into your hands, as long as”–

“Your Majesty!”

Asseylum glanced up from the screen in front of her, taken by surprise at the sudden shout. “Yes?”

The messenger leaned heavily against the doorframe, speaking between gasps for air. “The former Emperor, your grandfather– the doctors, his doctors say that– they say that”–

With every word he spoke, Asseylum could feel the blood draining from her face. “They say what? What did they say?” She didn’t need to ask. She already knew.

“They say that– Your Majesty, I grieve to be the one to bear the news– they say that he may have less than a day to live. Rayregalia Vers Rayvers is dying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, in which the author hurriedly shoehorns in an important plot point that she realized she somehow left out of the first four chapters, and Inaho becomes a victim of Bird Symbolism™.
> 
> Interestingly, the Inko scene was actually one of the first scenes I wrote for this fic, long before I had any sense of the plot or where anything was headed.
> 
> I apologize for the delay. The next chapter should be faster, though! Not this saturday, but probably the next.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and for all of your lovely comments on previous chapters! They really encourage me. :)


	6. 1.6 | Nekyia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Kaizuka’s touch was a shock. So physical, so present, that the violence of the sensation made Slaine gasp._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Dissociation, derealization, moderately graphic depiction of illness, hallucinations (some graphic), death (briefly).

* * *

 

 _[Nekyia](http://www.josephhyde.co.uk/video/nekyia/): a night sea journey, a descent into the underworld or into the belly of a sea monster, and a meeting with the dead. It is a myth which occurs in many _ _cultures in different forms and symbolizes the struggle towards spiritual or psychological revelation and transformation._

* * *

 

 

_19 October 2017_

 

Asseylum barely noticed the frantic sound of her footsteps echoing against the walls, the frantic beat of her heart echoing in her ears.

“Grandfather, I came as quickly as I could. You look…” _well_. The traditional greeting, so familiar it was a reflex beyond the level of habit, died on her tongue. Her grandfather did not look well in the slightest. His skin was waxy and yellowed, eyes dull and unfocused, sunken in their sockets.

 

 

She remembered the day he had taught her how to make Aldnoah cores. He had carried her down those long stairs beneath the castle, down and down beneath the surface as she kicked her short legs and giggled. She had been old enough to walk, but “little feet get tired” he’d said.

Her laughter had quieted when they entered the chamber, that brilliant glow washing the gold from her hair and the blue from her grandfather’s eyes. The strange carvings that loomed on the walls were a twisted mix of brilliant star-white light and deep shadow, and it made her small heart quail. “Don’t be afraid,” her grandfather had said, patting her back and rocking her comfortingly in his arms.

And she had been comforted. Her grandfather had always been that solid, reassuring presence at her back, something that she had never thought to doubt because he was just always _there_.

He had settled her down on the floor, and she’d watched, eyes round with awe, as he held his hands above the gleaming surface of the Aldnoah pool. As he drew out a perfect, star-like sphere, a raw Aldnoah core.

She remembered his warm, encouraging smile as he guided her small hands into the pool, the delight and pride in his deep voice when she was at last able to summon forth little glowing drops from it herself.

 

And that was all gone, now. Nothing but a fuzzy, pleasant memory in the recesses of her mind. Never again could she have that comforting touch, that warm voice.

Then, as if summoned by her thoughts, her grandfather’s dry, crackling voice rose into the air.

“Gloriana, you know I asked you to keep it down when you leave early. Your laboratory may have an exact timetable, but I certainly don’t.” He laughed a creaky laugh.

Asseylum blinked back the stinging in her eyes. “Please don’t strain yourself, Grandfather.”

“Ah… Ah? Oh, yes… Asseylum. Yes, it is you. Pardon the mistake. You have your grandmother’s hair, so lovely and golden. And I… I am so very tired.”

“Then you should rest”–

“Rest can not help me now. It is too late… too late for me. I must abandon you now, as your father did, as your mother did. You… Asseylum…”

“Yes?” She bit her lip hard enough that she should have tasted blood.

“You are so much like your mother. Your mother… she… Mavis… she was not of my blood, but she might well have been. I loved her as if she had been. Such a wonderful girl, so smart, so bold, so kind. Little wonder my son loved her so. Remember… remember to never live without love, my sweet child.”

“I… “ For a brief moment, the image of Slaine’s cold, despairing eyes flashed before her. “Yes, Grandfather. I will never forget that.”

“But now… they’re gone. I’ve lost my girl, I’ve lost my boy. My darling too. They are gone… and I lost you, too, for a time. I thought I was alone. The most terrible curse a parent can imagine; may you live to bury all your children. Ah… We should never… we should never have come to this accursed place.”

“But Grandfather, this is our home among the stars, the one we chose, the one we built”–

“Thank you for your sweet words. But yet… Mars was never meant for us. It has poisoned us, twisted our minds and hearts. Only suffering has come from this planet, from all I have built here. Oh, if only… if only I could somehow undo what I have done… but it is too late, too late. Too late for me.”

Asseylum’s eyes widened. Was it true; could it be true? Was Vers so hostile to humanity that it had turned the people who tried to conquer it hostile and poisonous as well? And yet, there was no time to think, no time to wonder. “Farewell… Farewell, Grandfather.”

A sigh, like the last gust of air from a dark cavern, rose from the depths of her Grandfather’s chest. “And now… and now… I go to them…”

Abruptly, the regularity vanished from the beeping of the instruments around them. A flock of physicians clustered around the former Emperor, but Asseylum knew– everyone in that room knew– that there was nothing to be done.

She stood by, holding her Grandfather’s already-chilled hand until the instruments went quiet and his fingers went limp in her grasp. She didn’t listen when the doctors made the announcement– she knew. She didn’t hear, didn’t need to hear, the words they said to her. She squared her shoulders, smiled at them, and strode out of the room.

It did not take many steps to reach the holo-cast room. She breathed in, out, steady like ocean waves.

Then she turned to the microphone.

“With great sorrow, as a bereft granddaughter and as a grieving subject, I announce the grave tidings: Rayregalia Vers Rayvers is dead.”

 

≠≠≠

 

_20 October 2017_

 

Yuki tapped her fingers restlessly on the steering wheel.

She would never, ever say it to Inaho’s face, but she hated being stuck so many ranks below him. Because then stuff like _this_ happened. The brass just dragged him around like a dog on a leash– and that wasn’t even the worst part of it! The worst part, the part that made Yuki grit her teeth at her own helplessness in it all, was that her little brother didn’t see a problem with it. He went along with everything because he thought it was necessary.

And… really, he wasn’t wrong. Her brother’s mind was essential to the UFE, even if he couldn’t (thank every heavenly power listening) participate in field operations any longer.

They hated him for it. She knew. They absolutely _hated_ having someone as indispensable as him. He could have been brought to trial for insubordination, desertion, even treason– but the UFE needed him, needed his ability to look at a battlefield and see precisely where pressure must be applied to tilt the conflict in his favor. They couldn’t dispose of him. Couldn’t even discipline him, because the public embarrassment of taking direction from a delinquent would be worse than sweeping it under the rug.

Yuki leaned forwards, letting her forehead rest against the cool, smooth plastic of the wheel.

She had failed him.

The day Inaho had turned eighteen hadn’t been the worst of her life (fuck no, there were a lot of worse days that she had lived through) but it was still pretty high up there on the list of shitty days. The regular beeping of the flock of machines, the tubes and wires and lines, her brother lying there silent and still with half his head smothered in layers of gauze– it had felt too much like those agonizingly long days and weeks and months after Novosterisk. Even if she had _known_ that he would be fine this time, it still hurt.

She couldn’t protect him then. Not from the bullets, not from the old men and their paperwork and bargains. And she couldn’t protect him now, either.

 _Mom, Dad, would you be mad at me for not taking care of him?_ she thought, watching the boat approach the dock. _Or would you understand? I’ve done what I could, even if it was never enough. You could understand that, right?_

Yuki still wasn’t used to seeing that eye patch. She would probably never be used to it. She didn’t _want_ to be used to it, didn’t want to have to live in a world where she had to be used to the fact that her brother had lost an _eye_. As though that was just a normal thing, no big deal.

 _Smile_ , she told herself as she got out of the car, _you’re happy to see him, so show it. Let him know. Your feelings of inadequacy are less important than that_.

“Nao!” Yuki yelled, throwing her arms around him, “I’m so glad to see you! You’re back early!”

“There is a situation that requires my presence,” Inaho said, and let out a small _mmph_ noise as she squeezed him.

“I don’t care why you’re here.” She released him– but only a little bit. His familiar warmth was a bit too comforting to let go of completely just yet. “I’m just glad to be able to hug my little brother again.”

“I’ve only been gone a week, Yuki.” But she could see the smile on his face.

“I know, but it’s so hard when I barely get to see you! When are they going to stop dragging you around, Nao?”

“When there are no longer any conflicts that require my engagement.”

She suppressed a shudder. “Ugh, Nao, don’t say that. It makes it sound like you’re still fighting in a war.”

“But I am, Yuki.”

She jerked back. “No! No you’re not! The war is over, and the people who started it are dead! Once the last Castle is gone, there won’t be any more fighting!”

He regarded her calmly. “The war will not cease until the conflicts that began it are solved. The direct hostilities have concluded, but the objectives that the war was started to achieve have not been reached.”

Without meaning to, Yuki had backed away from him entirely. She stood helplessly next to the car door as he stared at her solemnly. She couldn’t think of anything to say, couldn’t find the words to say he was wrong. “I…”

“It’s okay, Yuki. I’m fine with it.”

And _shit_ , she hated how accepting he was of this fucked-up world, and hated herself for hating that. What was wrong with her, that she couldn’t just be happy that her brother wasn’t suffering? Shit shit shit, she was blinking back tears now, she hadn’t meant to cry, she should be delighted to see her brother again so soon, so why was she crying?

There was that concerned crease between her brother’s eyebrows again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s”– she sniffled– “it’s not your fault. I just…” Yuki broke off with a sigh. “I just wish I had been able to give you a better world to live in than this mess.”

Nao didn’t say anything in response, just looked at her. She might have been imagining it, but he seemed… sad. Damn. She had really messed this up, hadn’t she?

The silence hovered thickly as they got into the car. There was the click of seatbelts, the creaking of the seats as they settled in. Yuki wrapped her hands around the wheel, making a face at the autumn chill that had taken it while she was away. Nao, for some reason, didn’t pull out his phone, but instead faced forward, to the open air past the windshield. She couldn’t read him from this side; that damned eye patch took everything. Sometimes, she couldn’t help but be delighted that the man who had done that to him was dead.

But Yuki didn’t start the car just yet. This quiet– it was horrible. She didn’t want this. She just couldn’t stand it. So she reached over and ruffled Nao’s hair. He glanced over, eye widening slightly– and then smiled.

Yuki returned the smile, relieved.

 

≠≠≠

 

Clarity was distinctly repulsive when it chose to visit him, if that was even what it was. If he had had the will, the energy, to move, to look around and inspect the room and comprehend his surroundings, then maybe he would have known.

But he had no wish to.

Whatever it was, it would pass. There was nothing but time here. And time passed.

Clarity _hurt_.

It was so cold, so cold, and his body shook uncontrollably and it hurt, his chest hurt, IV line taped to his wrist, breathing hurt he couldn’t breathe _he couldn’t breathe_ –

The coughing drove it all away, rough and violent and like having broken glass dragged through his chest, thick and filthy. It looked like dead, brackish blood when he coughed, but that was wrong wrong wrong if he had drowned in it he wouldn’t be hacking it back up, and cough and cough and cough and _it didn’t stop_ and–

_he was drowning_

couldn’t breathe

_drowning, water heavy and cold in his chest_

mouth open, gasping, not enough never enough

_and he was rotting from the inside out, corruption spilling from him with every wracking cough_

faces blurring, hands on his body, chest, arms wrists neck–

please, hasn’t it been enough, please just kill me, please, Father help me I’m dying please, Princess, please, someone, _anyone, help me_ –

 

It was so cold. He breathed in, out. It maybe hurt. He didn’t know.

It was nice, to just let go.

 

≠≠≠

 

“Sir, our apologies, but we did not expect to see you again so soon.”

It was obvious that an unexpected change to the schedule would surprise the staff, and Inaho had anticipated it. “No apology is necessary.”

The man looked uncomfortable for a moment– had Inaho’s casual disregard for protocol discomfited him? It wasn’t relevant, so Inaho dismissed the thought as the man cleared his throat. “So, sir, if you will allow me to escort you”–

“No need,” Inaho interrupted, walking briskly past. He knew the building; he had memorized the blueprints months ago. Two floors, attic, basement. Attic: the security room displaying all surveillance footage. Second floor: lodging facilities for the guards. First floor: visitation area; shower room; medical room. Basement: the cell room and associated facilities.

The medical room was hardly a cutting-edge facility, but it had the essentials and space for additional equipment to be brought in if necessary. After all, admitting someone who was legally deceased to a hospital would be difficult logistically.

Hopefully, hospital-grade facilities would not be needed.

Inaho knew that his presence or absence had zero affect on Troyard’s physical health. He knew this. And yet–

The creeping uneasiness had not left him in the time– not even a full week– that he had been away. It was as persistent as it was irrational.

Perhaps his awareness of Troyard’s overall poor condition concerned him.

Perhaps he was tired of knowing that others suffered while he stood by.

Without really meaning to, Inaho paused before the door to the medical room. It was an odd hesitation, and he could not put a name to the feeling that had brought it on and held him there, unwilling to cross the threshold. It was ironic; he had been too uneasy to stay away, and yet now here he was, reluctant to return.

He shook himself, and stepped into the room.

 

_Save Slaine Troyard._

That was what Seylum had asked of him, begged of him really. And he had– or rather, he thought he had. But now…

Troyard lay there, eyes closed, serene and still– it should have been peaceful. But _peaceful_ was not the right word for what he looked like. Peaceful implied comfort, contentment, calmness. If this was peacefulness, it was the peacefulness of dead and dying things, the emptiness left by absence.

Inaho tried to suppress a shudder. Perhaps he had made some small sound, because then Troyard’s eyes cracked open, sliding aimlessly in his direction. As that unfocussed gaze settled on him, he was struck by how out of place the piercing sky blue of Troyard’s eyes was in this place of grey and brown, stone and steel. He stared back, transfixed.

Then Slaine began coughing violently, and the moment was gone. Inaho could do nothing but stand by uselessly as the doctor and the lone nurse hovered, checking IV drips and oxygen levels.

Troyard looked hollowed out, sunken-eyed and thin. It was clearly more than just the work of illness, and a rebuking voice in the back of Inaho’s mind that sounded rather much like Yuki was growing louder and louder, telling him that he should have done something before now.

Before it got _this_ bad.

He hadn’t expected Troyard– the iron-willed adversary, a steady constant challenge through many battles– to disintegrate so easily. Again, Inaho didn’t understand. He didn’t, but he desperately wanted to– and needed to, now.

Yet…This was not Inaho’s area of expertise. Something– some _one_ – else was needed.

 

≠≠≠

 

Breathing hurt, but that was nothing new. Pain was familiar, to the point where Slaine barely noticed the clawing at his chest anymore.

Kaizuka was there, maybe, but that was wrong, or it should be, because the last visit had been not long ago– or had it been. Maybe it had. Maybe years had passed, and he hadn’t even noticed.

Why wouldn’t they just leave him alone. Why the needles, the mask strapped over his face, the prodding and poking and burning cold metal on his skin.

Sometimes Inaho Kaizuka stood before him, blank and cold and staring with that one dried-blood eye, and sometimes Kaizuka’s rotting corpse loomed over his bed, maggoty and decaying and with a bleeding, gaping hole blown through his head, and he didn’t know, didn’t care, which one was the real one any more.

 

 

≠≠≠

 

 

Inaho stood still against the chill wind, shoulders slightly hunched. He had never agreed with October weather. Nor did he desire to.

But information was far more important than physical discomfort.

“Doctor. What do you believe to have caused Troyard’s condition?”

Dr. Hent was a small, spare individual. Dark salt-and-pepper hair. Raspy voice from a previous smoking habit. The prosthetic leg was interesting, but not obvious except through gait.

The doctor plucked a blade of grass and chewed it slowly. “Well, a guard carried in the virus. Vaccine’s no good when you got sick kids, right? Nasty little things can stick to a lot of surfaces. From there it’s a classic case. Flu leads to vomiting. Add a cough, and you get aspiration. Then pneumonia. Nothing more to it.”

“So you do not suspect any intentional attempt to infect Troyard with a disease.”

“Why would I? It would be hideously inefficient, as a murder method. Anyway, this isn’t person-to-person pneumonia. This came from stomach bacteria.” Dr. Hent sniffed expressively. “Nasty.”

“Is it more or less dangerous than common types?”

“Pneumonia is pneumonia. Same difference. I can tell you right now though, any of them would be bad for the condition he’s in.”

“Were you concerned for his survival when you first saw his condition?”

“I’d be a fool not to be. I’ve seen a lot in my days, but rarely anyone that skinny outside of a famine zone.”

 _Famine zone… Dr. Hent likely served during Heaven’s Fall. Possibly even before._ “But your care was sufficient to compensate.”

“Don’t I know it. Though the little shit barely kept on. Don’t know what’s his deal.”

Inaho instinctively looked the doctor up and down, before remembering that that was no longer a useful gesture. Remarkable, how much of a gap the loss of the analytical engine had left in him. “Do you dislike your job here?”

“What? Why? I’m fine here. This is, essentially, a nice long paid retirement. I don’t even have to do much. It’s an arrangement of mutual convenience: UFE has a place to stuff an old one-legged doctor on disability benefits, and I get to sit back and absorb the scenery and occasionally prod the ‘top secret research project’ with a stethoscope.” Dr. Hent chewed thoughtfully on the blade of grass. “Funny thing is, he’ll fight the stethoscope. Needles? He’ll lay there like a lump of clay. But put a perfectly ordinary stethoscope on him, and he’ll thrash around like it was a brand.” After a thoughtful pause– “Kid’s fucked up.”

Inaho examined the statement. It was far too simplistic, but had some undeniable element of truth.

“And Troyard ain’t alone…” The doctor’s head whipped around, eyes focusing on him. “How long’s it been since you had a seizure?”

“My condition is supposed to be secure information.”

“Pah, you don’t get much higher in security clearance than I am right here. So I know all about you. Might even be one of your backup care providers? Not sure, been awhile since I looked at the paperwork. Anyway, answer the question.”

“I have not had another since the initial event.”

“Now, pardon an old physician’s investigative curiosity, but… why did all that become a problem only recently? I woulda had you on meds for that from the second they wheeled you in after Russia.”

“Initially, the analytical engine provided compensation and stabilization for any atypical signaling activity. However, as a result of my own actions, the engine became too much of a presence and led to further destabilization of my neuronal activity. It had to be removed. Regardless, I no longer need it.”

Dr. Hent’s eyebrow lifted. “Don’t need it? Sure, boy, think what you want.”

“I lived without it before.”

“But you got used to having it, didn’t you? Had to, to use it.”

“…Yes. I did. I can acclimate to not having it as well, though. I have.” I did not have a choice in the matter.

“Resilient, then. Good for you. I’m sure you’ve needed that a lot in the past few years.”

“War is war. It was no easier nor more difficult for me than for anyone else.”

The doctor hummed. “Don’t know about that. What about all the civilians?”

“Are there really civilians any longer, Doctor?”

Dr. Hent went completely still for a moment, and then sighed. “Damn. I keep forgetting what kind of world you kids live in.” They ran a hand over their face. “Y’know what, I’ve been standing out here in the cold for too long. You too. Might as well wait somewhere _warm_ for Troyard to start responding to treatment.” The doctor vanished inside.

Inaho did not move for a moment. The wind was sending loose leaves scuttling over the pavement, and the half-bare branches were stark against the grey sky.

A storm was coming.

 

≠≠≠

 

_23 October 2017_

 

“My Lady, I came as soon as I received your summons. What do you wish?”

Helene gestured to the chair across from her. “Please sit down. Your information has been invaluable to me in formulating my plan of attack. To provide me with the most relevant information, though, you must know the course I have set. That is what I have called you here today to share with you.” She spread her palms flat on the desk. “I do not need to tell you that this is entirely confidential. You are the first, and only, one to hear what I am about to tell you.”

Valkyr dipped her head. “Yes, my Lady. I fully understand.”

“Excellent, as always.”

“I have decided that Troyard will be very useful to me. It is always good to have a flag to raise, and even better to take on the mantle of a preexisting cause. There are few stories people adore more than that of the martyr.”

“Martyr? My Lady, is the official story not that it was Troyard himself who began the second interplanetary war?”

“I could not care less about what the crown says is true. I care even less about the factual version of events– which I highly doubt matches the official one, not that it matters. What is important is what I can get the rabble to swallow. If they are handed a tragic, noble hero, and told that he was destroyed and slandered by their own ruler, they will turn on her even more easily.”

Valkyr leaned forward. “So you do not believe that he was a significant part of the initial assassination plot?”

Helene snorted. “Hardly. I was a right terror myself when I was sixteen, but even _I_ wouldn’t have been capable of masterminding such a plot at that age. No, Troyard did not plan that attempt against our darling Empress’s life.”

“What do you believe his involvement was, then?”

“A spy. Saazbaum’s, to be specific. Consider on it: Cruhteo was a loyalist fool with close connections to the throne. Saazbaum would need eyes and ears on him to track his movements– and to ensure that the then-Princess was properly placed to meet her doom. Who better than a servant to stay invisible under Cruhteo’s very nose? The fact that Saazbaum later destroyed Cruhteo to retrieve his agent simply provides further proof. Whatever information Troyard gave Saazbaum must have been _very_ valuable, considering how quickly he was promoted. Though with a face like _that_ …” Helene’s eyebrow rose. “I wouldn’t be surprised if information wasn’t the _only_ thing he won favor with.” She sighed. “Even so, such a waste, to have been born a Terran. What could he have been, if he had been born one of the better race?”

“There is no way we can know, my Lady.”

“Indeed. Still, I can’t help but be glad that that Kaizuka brat removed him from the board for me. I don’t want any competition. But even now, he will be the perfect figurehead. The masses will charge into battle screaming his name, and never once suspect me of ambition. I will simply be championing a cause in the name of their gone-too-soon hero.”

“Even so, it will still be declared treason to so openly claim that the crown’s statements are false.”

“Ah, it’s all in the framing, Valkyr. That is why I will show my hand first. As I do so, I will speak to all of Vers of the tragic tale of Slaine Troyard. To those who suspect my motives, it will provide them with the purest of one: to clear the name of a wronged hero, and purge the system that destroyed him.”

“So, not treason… but rebellion?”

Helene smiled. “Precisely.”

Valkyr bowed her head. “Just as bold as I have learned to expect from you, my Lady.”

“Why thank you, Valkyr. It shall be a challenge, true… but I always love a good challenge.”

 

≠≠≠

 

_25 October 2017_

 

The stark overhead lighting made seeing faces difficult, but Inaho was not particularly bothered by that. Nor was he bothered by the wait. It was a standard intimidation technique. He expected no less from the UFE Military Council.

Eventually, they turned to him.

“Alright, Major. Speak your case.”

“I do not see why the council has rejected my proposed psychiatric treatment plan for Slaine Troyard.”

“Don’t like to beat around the bush, do you? Well, then, I won’t either: your proposal would be a grave breach of security. The staff currently at the secure facility are already a high enough risk themselves. Bringing in an outsider, with no way of ensuring secrecy? Not possible.”

“Dr. Kyell, as my personal psychiatrist, already has a high level of security clearance.”

“But you’re not a grave threat to international and interplanetary stability, are you? Troyard is not just a useful bargaining chip like you are; if word were to leak of his existence, then that would be the end of everything. Under no circumstances can we allow that.”

“There is a large amount of evidence that Troyard’s mental condition is negatively affecting his overall health”–

“Then it can be dealt with by the staff already there.”

Inaho had to make the effort to unclench his jaw before he could speak again. “None of the current staff are qualified to administer psychiatric care.”

“Well, that’s just too bad, isn’t it? If there’s a problem, we of the council are certain that you can handle it, Major Kaizuka. We trust your track record of resolving difficult situations in your favor.”

“I am not qualified to administer such care either”–

A different council member interrupted. “I’m certain you’ll figure something out, with that mind of yours. Now are we done here?”

“No, we are not”–

“I do not think the council’s itinerary is up to you to determine, is it– _Major_?” The general cut across coldly. “This hearing has concluded.”

 

 _They are not stupid enough to believe that I can find a way to provide Troyard with psychological care on my own_ , Inaho thought as he left the UFE military council hall. _No, they know very well what they are doing. This is no mere negligence: they are deliberately endangering Slaine’s health._

_“We trust your track record of resolving difficult situations in your favor.”_

Inaho’s step sped up ever so slightly.

_And I shall, General. I’ll find a way, even if you believe there isn’t one._

 

≠≠≠

 

“I cannot approve of this resource allocation proposal.”

Klancain sighed ruefully. “It fills me with discomfort as well, but nothing less will get past the Knights.”

Asseylum rose to her feet. “Less than fifty percent of the new shipment from Earth is supposed to be distributed to those below the rank of knight not serving in the military?” Her fingers, spread flat on the table, curled into fists. “I can not allow this. I will not.”

“I know it rankles– but the nobles will take it as a grave affront to have any less. Their loyalty has already been tested by the halt of the war on Earth. We cannot afford to push them any further.”

“My people will _starve_.”

“But surely fifty percent is better than nothing– and nothing is what they shall receive if this shipment is blocked.”

“I will order it through regardless.”

“And then you will lose the hearts of your vassals! Please understand, Asseylum, that your power rests upon the loyalty of those beneath you. If you lose them, you may very well lose the throne.”

“And are the common people not also part of that? Are they not just as human as you or I, are they not suffering? That suffering is caused in part, I am not afraid to admit, by the halting of the shipment of Earth’s stolen resources from the war– but we cannot live by thievery, and if their desperation is some portion my fault, then I can do something to fix it.” _I must do something_.

“We are doing something. But we must be gradual about it. We cannot simply wrest the privileges nobles are used to being granted from them and expect to keep their support. You need them to stabilize your throne, Your Majesty.”

“So thousands will go hungry to further feed some hundreds?”

“Those hundreds command armies.” Klancain moved from across the table, walking around to stand next to her. He put a hand on her shoulder, eyes solemn. “I understand your unhappiness with it. I mislike it myself. But Asseylum, please listen to me. Your rule is still fragile. Do not submit it to more challenges than you must. Wait until your strength has settled around you– then you shall make great changes. Necessary ones. But only when the time is right. If you attempt it too early, you may lose any chance at all.”

“I…” Asseylum took a deep, slow breath. “I understand. Thank you. I am ignorant yet of what I should know of this world.”

_This awful, broken world. Grandfather was right. Mars is poison to us._

“I will… allow this proposal to go to the council.”

 

≠≠≠

 

_29 October 2017_

 

Seeing Troyard up and walking again was a positive sign.

True, Troyard did not actually walk unless directed to do so. But physical recovery was an important foundation to start from. This was an improvement, no matter how incremental.

The plan could not proceed without Troyard, however. A conversation was necessary.

The visitation room was a rather harsh setting for that, but the facility lacked another neutral setting in which to conduct contact with Troyard.

Not that any contact could be neutral when Troyard was a prisoner. But there was nothing Inaho could do to alter that at the moment, and little reason for him to try. Though…

He was beginning to suspect that Troyard was far less dangerous than he had initially seemed. A man who lacked the will to move voluntarily would lead no armies.

For the moment.

But that was beside the current objective.

Troyard looked… dull, when the guards brought him in. There hardly seemed to be any color left in him– which was ridiculous and impossible. Troyard was not a photograph.

But yet…

Inaho shook himself. This was not a moment to lose himself in fancy. Troyard was a living, breathing human being, and needed to be treated as such.

“So, how are you feeling?”

Troyard stared fixedly at him, eyes oddly unfocussed for the intensity of his gaze.

“Are there any lingering effects of the illness or treatments that are troubling you?”

Troyard’s stare did not change.

This was not working. Inaho should have known that it wouldn’t: conversation between them had failed, multiple times, to deliver any positive developments.

A change of approach was required.

Inaho stood, pushing his chair back slowly to avoid the unpleasant screech of the metal against the concrete floor.

The distance across the table was measured in two short steps. Interesting, how little distance there had been between them all along.

Troyard stared through him, eyes blank. His hair hung in lank, listless strands over his face. Inaho suppressed the odd urge to reach out and brush it back.

Enough of that.

“Troyard. It has come to my attention… that I have been remiss in my handling of your situation. I have been careless; I have been negligent.” Slaine still did not respond. Inaho took a deep breath. “This must change. From now on, I intend to ensure that the proper measures are taken.”

A pure, reckless impulse to touch, to contact, to do _something_ to change the strange tense barrier that hovered between them rose in him. He reached out and took Troyard’s pale hands.

Troyard’s fingers felt strange in his, his hands far more habituated to holding kataphrakt controls, tablets, military reports. They were unsettlingly cold, bones palpable beneath the thin, dry skin, all lines and angles and sharp edges. Inaho resisted the urge to hold them tighter and drive some warmth into them that way.

Troyard was looking up at him, with eyes that were blue and deep and abruptly no longer vacant. Inaho stared back, carefully re-collecting his thoughts before continuing.

“Things will be different.” Inaho said. “Your circumstances will improve. I will do what I can. Your history is irrelevant; every human being deserves humane treatment.”

Slaine still did not react to the words. But now, instead of emptied, he looked…

Alive, again.

 

≠≠≠

 

The pain had stopped. Slaine did not know if he should trust that, if he could trust anything, eve his own body, any more.

He was back in his cell.

He didn’t care.

There were flickering images of death and dying all around him when he blinked, darting away when he tried to look at them. He wished they would just come out and haunt him and get it over with.

They didn’t shriek, or cry, or wail in agony. But that made sense; he hadn’t been able to hear the dying screams of the hundreds of soldiers in the Trident Base either.

Someone was talking to him. He ignored them.

Someone stood over him. One of the guards. Slaine looked at them out of the corner of his eye, feeling as though he lay at the bottom of a deep well and was looking up through its hollow depths.

They probably wanted him to get up.

It felt strangely like piloting a kataphract, the deliberation required in drawing his body upright, centering his weight, contorting bone and muscle and sinew to move forward.

He followed the outline of the guard’s form. Obedience was easier. Resisting took energy. Energy he had no desire to waste.

There it was. The lovely little terrarium that was the visitation room. For the visitors he wasn’t allowed. Not that he had ever wanted any. That life, that falsehood, where he had known and cared about others, had ended.

But Kaizuka was there anyway.

There was blood on Slaine’s feet. He could feel it. Couldn’t they see him tracking the filth everywhere?

Ah well, they were dragging him around, it should be their problem.

The world went blurry for moment– or a day, or a week, or a month– and then he was sitting. Kaizuka was across from him. In that damned room.

Of course, Kaizuka looked perfectly normal. But who knew if that was real, how long it would last. Maybe the man was bleeding out on the floor. Slaine could not find the energy to care. His sins weighed heavy enough on him already. He hardly needed another reminder.

He wished… he wished to be numb. There had to be an end out there somewhere, past the edge of sanity. If there was nothing left to him now but the long, slow slide into madness, he welcomed it.

Kaizuka was talking. Slaine stared at him, waiting for his skin to rot and blacken and peel away like burning paper.

Kaizuka was moving. Slaine tried to track it, but the will to focus eluded him.

And then somehow Kaizuka was right there beside his chair. He stared, waiting for this image to either vanish or do whatever it had to do to him.

Didn’t matter if it was real. Real people vanished too. Easily.

It was talking again, Slaine could see the lips moving. _What do you want here? What do you want from me? Why won’t you just leave me alone? You saved me for Her. That’s enough. Let me be._

Then, like nightmare leaping from the depths of sleep, the shadow reached out, suddenly, before he had a chance to flinch away.

And–

Kaizuka’s touch was a shock. So physical, so present, that the violence of the sensation made Slaine gasp.

And–

Slaine’s first instinct was to yank away, but something held him there. Those hands around his… Kaizuka’s grip was careful but awkward, as though he understood the theory behind physical contact but hadn’t had much practice.

And–

It was so unsettlingly _warm_.

Nothing dead should be that warm.

The unexpected sensation reached through the haze and distance, and–

Slaine was flooded with the abrupt, terrible, terrible, awful hope that this could be real. It was too direct, too vivid, to not be–

He looked up, actually looked, saw that flat expression, that one dried-blood eye, the dark shadow-space of the eyepatch. Warm human touch surrounded his hands, seeping through his skin from the soft pads of Kaizuka’s fingers…

This felt real, and it hurt, it _hurt_ , the sudden reconnection with awareness, the fluttering, violent possibility spreading wings in his chest.

Maybe drifting away was not inevitable; maybe there was something, anything other than nothingness left to him. Nothingness would be easier, softer, than the cage built from his sins that framed his life now, but he was a coward who clung to the tattered edges of sanity even as he knew it would only bring more pain. Was it really sane, to choose suffering over peace? He had no way of knowing. But yet…

He would not let go.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, first of all, I apologize for the long delay in updates. What I didn't realize, back at the beginning of October when I made the optimistic prediction of updating within two weeks, was that I would have three exams, two midterms, and a convention all within the month of October. And then, in November, MORE EXAMS and a research proposal to write. So progress has been slow at best. But here the chapter is at last, and it's the longest one yet!
> 
> Second, if you want to hear me and other authors and fans talk about A/Z, whine about writing, make awful egg-related puns at each other, etc, then hop on over to the [Blue Roses Chatroom!](http://us23.chatzy.com/39059880273998) Anyone is welcome to stop by, and there's almost always someone in there to greet you. I've had a lot of fun there since I found it, and I'd love to meet even more fans there too!


	7. 1.7 | Anabasis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anábasis, Greek: “a going up, an ascent," to emerge from the underworld.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay– between finals, other writing, and weird personal issues, progress has been very slow. However, here's the chapter– and it's exactly five minutes to midnight here for me, and thus still Slaine's birthday, so: Happy Birthday Slaine!
> 
> -edit- I almost forgot! thank you all so much for more than 100 kudos! And all the lovely comments and bookmarks everyone has left– they all mean so much to me, they really do. It's that kind of encouragement that kept this chapter going, even during my lower points. Again, Thank you all so much!
> 
> –second edit- There were several mistakes in this chapter, probably due to the drawn-out nature of its writing. I thank the commenter who pointed out one, and I smack myself for quite literally forgetting an entire part of a scene (the second mistake). These are now fixed, though! The scene edit occurs in the second scene, the one from Slaine's perspective, if you wish to re-read.

* * *

 

 _I_ _’m so much older than I can take…_

 

* * *

 

 

_2 November 2017_

Rayet held up a hand to shield her eyes against the snow glare. Apparently years ago before Heaven’s Fall, this time of year in this part of Europe would have been more grey and rainy than snowy. But Heaven’s Fall had royally fucked over the climate everywhere on the planet. So Rayet was stuck with snow. And lots of it. And the infrastructure was shit– where it even existed.

 _Makes it fucking hard to travel on foot, that’s for sure_ , she thought as snow crunched under her boots and clung in soggy, icy chunks to her soles. _How the fuck do people even live out here?_

It had been surprisingly easy to get around without ID. Though that kinda made sense, didn’t it? Pretty much everyone was a soldier here, or close enough. What would be the point in checking?

Even when she and her dad had been tossed here, it had been easy to blend and slip in through the cracks. She’d been too young to really understand what was going on– but even looking back on her rosy-tinted child’s memories, they hadn’t had a hard time. No one had seemed suspicious of a family showing up out of nowhere with no IDs or passports or anything. Maybe after Heaven’s Fall, no one really cared anymore. Who gave a fuck if you had no papers, or faulty ones? It wasn’t as if anyone had time to grab stuff like that when a giant chunk of burning moonrock was going to crush everything in two hours, and you had to get out of there while you could.

Rayet hiked her bag up higher on her shoulder and glared at the timetable up above the station. It wasn’t like she had anywhere she needed to get to… but who liked waiting?

She might have worried about standing out, with her travel-worn hoodie and ratty backpack– but she wasn’t the only person on the platform who looked like they had been dragged through a kilometer of dirt and rocks. Evidently “homeless vagrant” was a popular occupation around here.

Then again– wasn’t it everywhere?

Rayet had to admire these people. Their world, their lives, their sense of security and normalcy, had all been bombed out and blasted to hell over and over again. And they somehow just… carried on. Kept living. Kept fighting, despite all that.

For some reason, Inko’s cheery smile and bright eyes wavered before her eyes. Rayet shook her head. Stupid, stupid. She had scarpered because she couldn’t do that, couldn’t _be_ that. There was something… _missing_ , inside her. Who knew if she would ever find it out here– but she would sure as hell never find it back there, with everyone she had learned to trust over the course of the second war just getting along and making do. Maybe it just showed off how fucked up she was, in comparison to them, but she couldn’t… pretend like that. Pretend to know what to do, now that the fight that she had built herself a world on was gone from beneath her feet.

 _Well_ , she thought as a distant rumble and the flashing of the warning lights that lined the platform heralded the approaching train, _navel-gazing about it isn’t going to help, is it?_

The train screeched to a stop, and the human fog gathered low near the doors. Rayet gave a generous helping of elbow to anyone who dared try to shove her.

_It’s a big world._

Eventually everyone filtered aboard, with Rayet ensuring that she was at the front of the pack. She shoved her bag onto the overhead rack and tossed herself back into a seat.

_There’s gotta be something for me out there._

 

≠≠≠

 

Slaine curled his hands over his chest. The memory of warmth they held was more than enough to stave off the creeping cold.

He breathed in, and out. Steady. _Hold on. Stay with it_. He listened intently to the real world sounds all around. Distant footsteps. The many-whispers soft fall of rain, carrying in through the little barred window in the corridor. The small, thin sounds his own breath made. The quiet clink that the pendant made as he pressed his hand against it.

He hadn’t eaten today. He had tried, honestly tried. But the second the bland mush had touched his tongue, he had nearly gagged. The throbbing headache, the twisting stomach, had left him incapable of forcing anything down his throat.

Despite that, he somehow did not feel hungry. Perhaps it was because he didn’t need any energy to just lie there on the bed and inhale, exhale.

Another sound added itself to the count of noises in his awareness. Footsteps. Slaine rolled over on the bed reluctantly, to face the yawning mouth of the hallway. If someone was coming, he didn’t want them behind him.

The steps drew closer, taking on form and shape and gait and an odd sense of _familiarity_ –

“Hello,” said Kaizuka.

Slaine eyed him warily “Why are you here?”

“It has been determined that physical activity and exposure to sunlight would improve your health.”

Slaine tried to suppress his reaction, keep his expression blank and closed, but the words caught him off guard enough that he knew his eyes had widened slightly despite his efforts. “What– what do you mean?”

He knew what Kaizuka meant. But he couldn’t believe it. He had to be misinterpreting something, somewhere.

“You are being allowed to go outside. Unless you don’t want to?”

For a moment, Slaine could not even gather the words to respond, and merely stared at Kaizuka’s patiently blank face. Then, he looked away. “Of course I want to. Do you think I _like_ this cage?” Though in truth, a temporary taste of freedom would only make the cage bitterer to return to. But he was too weak to refuse a chance to see the sky again.

Even if it did not– could not– last.

He hauled himself to his feet as Kaizuka watched. Wanted to snap _What are you looking at_ , but bit his tongue and held it back.

For some reason his hands _weren’t_ cuffed. Not that he was going to object. He knew Kaizuka, anyway. This lack of restraints meant that the other man didn’t consider him a threat.

The idea was almost enough to stir a childish, petty fury to life in his chest and drive him to prove that arrogant bastard wrong. Almost. But he lacked the drive. What would be the use? It would only fail, and he’d lose this thread of a chance at seeing the outside world again– however briefly.

Kaizuka was more right than he knew. Slaine truly wasn’t a threat to him. Would never be one again.

“Aren’t you going to list all the threats hanging over me to frighten me into compliance?” His eyes ached, looking at Kaizuka. He was so tired.

“No. That would be redundant. You are already aware that there are measures in place to prevent escape, or harming yourself or others.”

Slaine didn’t deem that worthy of a response. Instead, he trailed quietly after Kaizuka. How many cameras were on him, in that moment? He’d stopped caring a while ago. Maybe there weren’t even any. He had no way to tell. And really, he’d rather not know.

The stairs were more of a challenge than he would have admitted to anyone– and the way Kaizuka just stood there, staring expectantly at him with that one flat eye, made him want to snap again.

Slaine suppressed the urge once more, concealed the tremor in his straining muscles, and doggedly kept climbing.

There was a door at the end of the hallway. Plain. Metal. Multiple locks and a key code pad. Of course, it was all unlocked by the time he reached it.

It was raining out beyond the shelter of the doorway. Slaine didn’t really care, though; he wouldn’t have given a shit even if it were sleeting.

He would do anything to see the sky again. Even a flat grey one like this.

There it was. The light of day. Not just a vision, a dream that would dissolve the second he reached out to touch it– something real, something present, something _right there_. Just a step away. Slaine breathed it in, cold damp air and the smell of wet earth and all, feeling it fill the empty spaces between his bones, until his body shook with it.

Slowly, trepidation and eagerness battling in a tempestuous swirl, he lifted one foot and placed it past the threshold.

Even when not barefoot, the give of grass and dirt beneath his step was so… _different_. Different from metal landing castle flooring, or court hallway tiles, or concrete prison floor slabs. Slaine didn’t even feel the rain as he brought both feet down on the ground, and then jumped– not high, but enough to luxuriate in the feel of earth– of _Earth_ – under him. Catching him as he fell.

He spread his arms out and turned his face to the sky, cataloging every drop that hit his skin, cold and wet and exhilaratingly _alive_. He was on Earth again, really on Earth, on the planet where he’d been born, the planet that he had lost, lost, lost… and yet, even when he had thought it would kill him, burning him to ash in the fiery arms of re-entry, it had taken him back

A strange lightheadedness overtook him, as though he were on the moon base once more and gravity had no hold on his body. For a moment he spun with the Earth. Felt the universe turning slowly around him, through him.

The wondrous sensation was abruptly ruined by arms grabbing him– no, not grabbing. Catching. He had… fallen? He thought he recognized those hands, too, the tone of the breathing in his ear.

“Let go of me!” he snapped, shoving Kaizuka’s hands off of him and pushing himself back to his feet in the same motion. “I don’t need you to catch me!”

Kaizuka, for some obscure reason of his own, did not point out how distinctly false this statement was. Ironic, how the one person Slaine would have rather never had anything to do with seemed to have developed a habit of holding on to him.

Why did it have to be Kaizuka?

“It seems your condition is poorer than assessed. You shouldn’t be out in this weather for long, then.”

Slaine felt a small, wry smile work its way onto his face despite himself. “What, worried I’ll catch something from being out in the cold?”

Inaho, who had retreated to the shelter of the open doorway now that his self-assigned task of treating Slaine like an invalid was complete, frowned. Not angrily, though, but in the manner of one who had seen a crooked painting hanging on the wall. “Low temperature itself doesn’t give anyone an illness,” he said. “Actually, exposure to low temperatures strengthens the immune system by release of hormones tuned to combat its affects.”

Slaine raised an eyebrow. “So, you are telling me that being cold makes a person healthier?” _I should be the picture of health, then_.

“No. If you were to acquire hypothermia– a condition that someone of your low bodyweight is highly predisposed to– then the concurrent weakening of the immune system would lead to heightened susceptibility to pathogens.”

“I didn’t ask,” Slaine said shortly.

“I assumed you would want correct information.”

“And what made you think that?”

Inaho looked down at the ground, brow furrowed ever so slightly in a way that made a crease appear between his eyebrows. “Nothing.”

Slaine held back a sigh. Kaizuka didn’t have to pull the kicked-puppy act. Or rather, the ridiculous version of it that preternaturally blank face was capable of producing. “It doesn’t matter. I’m done out here anyway.” _It’s time for this farce to be over_.

 

≠≠≠

 

_3 November 2017_

 

The door of Slaine’s cell had barely been closed behind him before Inaho’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

A summons to the nearest UFE base. To be assigned to a unit and deployed. Inaho, reading that, did not react. There was nothing unexpected to react to: he had known this, or something much like it, would happen.

“So,” came a voice from somewhere near his shoulder, “you just got the same news I did?”

“The military operation? Yes.”

“Well, guess we won’t be seeing you around for a while then! Right?”

“I have been ordered to join the attacking force.”

Dr. Hent squinted disapprovingly. “Really? They must be pretty confident in you.”

“They are.” _They have made a point of informing me so_.

Dr. Hent patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll walk you out.” The doctor’s stride was casual and even as they proceeded down the hall and out the door. On the empty ground outside, the doctor paused, and Inaho followed suit. “So, you’re definitely headed out to the field again?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Hent smiled wryly. “Think it will feel like old times, so to speak? If I may be so flippant.”

“It will feel like a battle.”

“To the point, as per usual. Should have expected that, I guess!” The doctor laughed sheepishly. “Well, I wish you luck out there.”

Dr. Hent held out a hand, and Inaho shook it. Then, was dragged into a sudden, firm hug.

“They have eyes and ears everywhere,” the doctor whispered low and furtive in his ear. “Take this to someone you know you can trust to keep quiet, and who knows their trace chemicals.” Inaho felt something– small, oblong, rounded– press into his palm. Then they pulled away, cheerfully saying, “Now, come back in at least mostly one piece, you hear?”

Inaho did not look down at the object now closed safely in his fist. “Thank you. I will try.” He continued to ignore it until he was in the car next to Yuki, driving away. Even then, he waited several minutes before risking a glance.

It was a vial. Frozen, and filled with a red liquid. Familiarly bright red. There was a label on the side, so Inaho turned it to read the writing there. Dr. Hent’s handwriting.

 _A name– Troyard, Slaine. The date from several days ago. It’s… a blood sample?_ Inaho closed his hand around it again. _Dr. Hent gave this to me for a reason. The doctor suspects something, and is giving me the means to prove it. But… what?_

_“They have eyes and ears everywhere.”_

_“Trace chemicals.”_

Inaho stared into the distance as it flashed by past the window. He would need his tablet– the secure one. And Dr. Yagarai. If this meant what he suspected it meant…

It could be much more dangerous, and much more deadly, than any battle.

“Nao?” Yuki’s voice broke into his thoughts. “What it that you have there? Something interesting?”

He looked at her– her smile, her warm brown eyes, her steady hands on the wheel, her constant concern for him, her worries about his past and his future (worries that could only worsen once she heard the deployment orders)– and knew that, more than anything, he must keep her safe.

 

_They have eyes and ears everywhere._

 

“No, Yuki, it’s nothing. Just a curiosity I picked up.”

 

≠≠≠

 

Helene looked out over the red, red surface of Vers spread below the orbit of her landing castle, and smiled. It would be foolish to become complacent now– but did she not deserve a little satisfaction, when everything was falling so neatly into place for her?

The little toy empress and her pretty prop of a husband were neatly backing themselves into a corner without any help from Helene’s end– except for a few well-placed words in the ears of a handful of key lords about the proper pride of Versian nobles, of course– and the old emperor had conveniently expired long before he had the chance to be an obstacle.

And now… Now, after all of Valkyr’s months of effort with the underground, leveraging her connections, calling in favors, building alliances, the organizations of malcontents had finally accepted her offer. Or rather, she had finally made it, in the knowledge that they would accept. It would not do, to leave such an important variable uncertain.

The rabble certainly was well organized. A surprisingly high number of Troyard’s soldiers and staff remained loyal, and had escaped both the battlefield and prison. Though the empress’s foolishly light-handed treatment of those who had directly opposed her had undoubtedly made it easier for them to escape.

Pretty speechifying about peace meant nothing to rats with empty stomachs.

So, the game moved forward. The board was set. The match had already begun.

Time for the next move.

Helene pulled up the intercom. “Valkyr. Do you have my essential items packed?” Carefully chosen words that could mean nearly anything, and gave nothing away about the little memory chip filled with the evidence (real or not, Helene did not care) that she would present to the rabble.

“Yes, my lady. Everything you require is secure.”

Just a day trip, a casual visit to the ice mines of the pole to survey the state of the Morgaine clan’s share in them. Something every noble Versian did. Nothing suspicious.

The last phase of this farce of submission. Helene would be glad to be rid of it.

Her train awaited.

 

≠≠≠

 

_4 November 2017_

 

“Wait– we’re being ordered to form up?”

Nina nodded grimly. “Yup, the Deucalion is flying out in a week.”

Inko let her chin sink into her folded hands. Deployed. To the field. Against that landing castle. The last one.

She closed her eyes and breathed out hard through her nose. “How many other platoons will there be? Where we’re going?”

Nina frowned. “I don’t know. It wasn’t in the announcement…” Then, she brightened. “Wait! There was something about a new prototype kat! And I think the Deucalion crew are going to be the ones to test it out!”

“Prototype Kataphrakt? What kind? What’s wrong with the KG-8?”

“Uh, don’t you remember how pathetic they were against the Martian kats?” Nina squinted at her.

“It didn’t matter! We beat them by working together!”

“Yeah… It was a close thing sometimes though.”

“But we’re not going to fight with Mars again! Why are they building more of the damned things? That makes it sound like they’re bracing for another war! That can’t happen!”

Nina shrugged. “I don’t make the decisions. I don’t know what they know, over in headquarters.”

“Would you…” Inko looked away, and then back to Nina. “Would you fight in another war? If there were one?”

Nina looked back at her steadily. “If I had to, to protect Mom and Dad, and you guys. I mean, no one really wants to fight… but we do it anyway, don’t we? Almost everyone has someone, or something, they want to keep safe.”

Inko’s stomach twisted. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s all we can really say, right now.” She shuddered. “I just… really hope this operation is the last one.”

“Same here. I never got used to it, really– the fighting, I mean.”

“I never did either, I think… it’s like, after a bit you learn to shut off the part of you that was scared, that wanted to run, but it never really went away… and shutting down didn’t mean getting used to anything, anyway.”

Nina shuddered. “Yeah… it got easier to shut off, though. I pretended it didn’t scare me– that _I_ didn’t scare me, a little, sometimes– but it did make my skin crawl, to realize how ready I’d become to just jump right in.”

“We had to, though. But in the end… what did it cost us?” Inko’s mouth twisted bitterly. “I have no idea. What would I have been like, or you, or anyone, if the whole war hadn’t happened? We can’t know. So we can’t compare, can’t weigh what we gained and what we lost. Can’t tell if a piece is missing when you never saw the whole picture anyway, right?”

Nina put a hand on Inko’s shoulder “True… but hey, let’s not get too caught up in what-ifs and might-have-beens. We’ll take out this landing castle, and that will be it. Life will be back to normal.”

“For now,” Inko sighed. But then, she shook herself and smiled up at Nina, hauling herself to her feet. “Anyway, you’re right– no point in moping! I guess we should go start packing.”

 

≠≠≠

 

Helene rose, back regally stiff, as the maglev train glided to a stop. If she had been a more irreverent personality, she might have described her current mood as “giddy.” But that was beside the point.

“Valkyr. Are they ready to receive me?”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“I wonder how long this show of proper deference will last?” Helene gave a small, scathing laugh. “I’ll accept what I am due while they give it, though. And when they refuse it”– her eyes narrowed– “I will take it from them.”

“They will learn to respect you, my Lady. Or you shall make them regret it.”

Helene allowed herself a brief smirk. “Such is true. You know me well, Valkyr. For now, though, they are behaving. So let us go impress these rough-hewn drudges.”

The doors slid back with a faint hiss, and Helene stepped out onto the platform. There was no chaotic muddle of a crowd, as she had expected, but a neatly filed set of rows, and they all saluted crisply as she walked forwards.

Helene suppressed a smile. Their commander clearly had them very well-trained. Likely one of Troyard’s officers, then. She would have Valkyr search the records and see if a name could be put to the face she had seen only once, and briefly at that. Not that she minded the secrecy; such wariness was appropriate in a good partner, for games like these.

As she proceeded down the hall, flanked by Valkyr and a man who was apparently the ringleader’s proxy for the moment, the proxy informed her: “The chief made sure everything was all set up and ready for you, milady.”

Helene tilted her head in acknowledgement. “Please convey my gratitude to him. His assistance– and the excellent work you all have put forth– has been invaluable in this endeavor.” The remnants of Troyard’s forces, and the networks they had created, were remarkably strong. Dangerous, as well. Dismantling them was a necessity, when she no longer had a use for them.

The man who had organized them all would undoubtedly cause problems in the future– Helene had seen the look in his eyes, she knew he neither liked nor trusted her. Their temporary alliance was sufficient, for the moment. When it became necessary, she could remove him with ease.

She leaned back in the chair– nothing more than a spare metal thing, up here at the mines far from the spaceport. If this place was going to be her base of operations, she would have to remedy the lack of luxuries in it. Once she got her hands on the Aldnoah activation factor the artificial gravity areas could be extended as well. Such a pity, that the bodies adapted for Terran soil were the ones they remained bound to, even here on Vers.

Yet, it was the duty of humanity to transcend its limits. Thus they had done, claiming Vers and elevating themselves above their ancestral race. It was Helene’s task– her duty– to continue forward with that quest.

“My lady,” Valkyr said from where she stood discretely in the background, out of view of the camera, “the signal pathways are all secure, and all broadcast channels are open to us. The moment you give the order, you will be live to every screen on Vers capable of receiving a video message.”

Helene nodded, once. “Excellent work, Valkyr.” She turned her eyes to the camera and took a deep breath. Calm. Charismatic. Commanding. Those were what she was, and that she must be in the minds of all those who witnessed her rise, on this momentous day.

Oh, to finally make the strike she had readied herself for, for the last nine months– and longer, truly. What an absolutely delicious feeling.

Helene smiled, small and secretive and sharp, before raising her hand and calling “Begin the broadcast.”

She watched as the little light flicked to green. Knowing that most every eye on Vers watched her through that gleaming black lens, she began.

“Good people– _all_ people– of the great and honorable Vers Empire, please listen. Listen with an open, honest mind, and surely the truth shall resonate within your hearts. Listen, as I tell you the noble, sorrowful tale of Slaine Troyard.”

 

≠≠≠

 

Up in her neatly-appointed birdcage of a room, Lemrina picked away slowly at a needlepoint pattern– needlepoint, how uselessly extravagant when people starved in the shuttle-slums, of course her sister would provide her with something like _this_ to pass the time– and ignored the pointless newsreel playing on the screen.

But then– a crackle, a wild buzz of static. Lemrina’s head whipped up, and her eyes widened when a new image jittered into focus. They widened even further with every word that came from the woman on the screen’s lips.

The needle fell to the ground with a small _ting_ and clattered to a stop on the empty floor, forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beginning line from "All These Things That I Have Done" by The Killers. A fitting song for this story.


	8. 1.8 | Run From Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A jolt of pain shot through his skull, brief but vicious. It left him dazed, unsteady, as though he had been cast into a deep lake and hung there, weightless and adrift.
> 
> Someone was yelling, high and tinny– couldn’t they stop? It was so pointless, such senseless noise. It made his head throb. Repetitive and jangling babble against his eardrums–
> 
> –“Naho! Nao! Inaho! Nao, can you hear me? Nao! Please! Say something!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday Inaho! Don't mind what AO3 says– I am posting this before midnight on the seventh! I had hoped to post a separate fic, but it turns out an update here was all I had time for… oh well!
> 
> Also, there are some mistakes in chapter 7 that I need to fix (one I noticed, and one someone kindly pointed out)– that should be fixed as soon as I have time. I'll note here when those fixes have been made.
> 
> -edit- Mistakes are fixed! The scene edit occurs in the second scene of chapter 7, the one from Slaine's perspective, if you wish to re-read.

_5 November 2017_

 

“Ten units of the specified model, each activated personally by myself, Asseylum Vers Allusia, Empress of Vers, so as to last until the time of my death. As per the agreement.” She could feel Klancain’s presence at her shoulder, and took comfort in it against the cold eyes across the table.

The UFE representative hummed dispassionately. “Have they been field tested?”

“N– no they haven’t been. Where would they be tested?”

“So, you are attempting to trade us untested machinery? On faith?”

Asseylum carefully restrained the indignation rising inside of her breast. “These are prototype units. Ones that you requested remain as secret as possible during construction. If there were a location where you wished us to test them before packing and shipment, then we would gladly comply. No such location was given to us, however.”

“Sir,” Klancain broke in, “I hope you do not wish us to retroactively comply with conditions that were not part of the initial agreement?” A glance to her side showed Asseylum the steel in his eyes. The steel she had married him for. She had not needed a husband; she had needed a weapon. That’s what the Cruhteo clan’s power was, even if she wielded it for peace.

It was cruel. But Asseylum had begun to teach herself to bear necessary evils.

The events of yesterday had left her… fragile. She had known, of course, that the enemies of peace still persisted. And she _should_ have known, should have understood, how easy it would be for the power-hungry and war-mongering to persuade the most restless among Versian citizens to support them. She had failed them– as she had failed Slaine. Count Morgaine’s story had been a painful, aching reminder of that. Was it really any surprise at all that the story Asseylum had _hated_ to weave had also failed, in the end?

A lonely, bitter corner of her heart had _wanted_ the truth to be known, and had reveled as Morgaine had laid out, in her calm, confident voice, the ways Slaine had been belied, betrayed, and destroyed.

Yet, Asseylum could not let her heart rule her. Peace was worth any price.

 _Even this one_ , she told herself.

Morgaine’s splinter cell was no more than that: a splinter cell. Her story was nothing more than a story (and Asseylum repressed the caustic guilt of how much truth it held deep inside, buried it beneath her determination). At this very moment she was handing the UFE the key to defeating the last landing castle still trespassing on Terran territory.

 _Peace will return_ , she thought. _I know it_.

 

≠≠≠

 

“Sky’s clear tonight.”

Marito’s voice held a strange, flat note that made Yagarai glance up from his drink. “It is.”

“You’re not gonna ask why I say that?”

“Well,” Yagarai hummed, “if you want to elaborate, you will.”

Marito snorted under his breath. “You know me, doc. I was just thinking, you can see the moon, the stars, the satellite belt… all of it. Damn lovely, isn’t it?”

“That’s a very bitter tone to say ‘lovely’ in.”

“So what if it is?” Marito slammed his drink– nothing but seltzer, the man had remained fairly steadily on the wagon this past year– down on the bar with a clatter. “I think I have a right to be bitter, after surviving eighteen years of this shit. But who am I to talk.” He tightened a fist until his knuckles went white. “There are kids who lived their whole lives in that time.”

“Like the Kaizukas?” Yagarai kept any hint of a knowing tone carefully out of his voice.

“Yeah,” sighed Marito. “And so many other kids like them… they look up at the sky tonight, and what do they see? They see the sky. That’s all. I look up… and I see Heaven’s Fall. I see the moon torn to pieces, I see showers of flaming rock and gravity waves tearing up the ground, I see waves the size of mountains swallowing cities. I see… death. Blood. Fire. But them… They don’t remember any of that. They’ve never known a sky with a perfect full moon, all round and smooth and unbroken. And they never will.”

“Yes… I never thought of it that way. But yes. You’re right.” _They don’t mourn the world that was lost, because what would they mourn for? They never even knew it. You can’t lose that which you never had._

“You ever look at these kids and feel really old? Because they aren’t even kids anymore. They grew up on us while we weren’t looking. While we were fighting a fight we failed to protect them from.”

Yagarai swirled his drink thoughtfully, but did not take a sip. “We aren’t as young as we used to be, Marito. We can’t do everything.”

“We should have been able to do _something_ , though.”

“Marito.” Yagarai put his hand on the other man’s arm. “We’ve been over this.”

Marito didn’t shrug him off. “I know, doc. I know.” He gazed glumly into the depths of his glass. “Doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

“So, then, are we aged and world-weary enough to join the bitter old men’s club?”

Marito let out a bark of a laugh. “Wouldn’t that be comfy! Just sit back and complain, like we always do. Leave it up to the kids. Hell, they’ll probably do a better job of it than we ever did.”

Yagarai raised a brow thoughtfully, staring off into the empty air. “Maybe they will. Maybe they will.”

The air was cut by the high sound of a message alert.

“Ah, sorry, I think that one is mine.” Yagarai pulled out his phone with a sheepish smile. Then, the smile faded. “From Inaho? He says…” Yagarai’s eyes widened. “He says he has something he wants me to look at when he arrives here at the Deucalion.”

“Look him over? For a check-up?” Marito frowned.

“He didn’t say…” Yagarai didn’t look up from the message, his expression folded with disquiet.

“What else could it be?”

Yagarai shook his head. “If it were a medical issue, he would have specified the symptoms. This is not that.”

“What does he want then?”

“Knowing him… I’m not sure I want to find out.”

 

≠≠≠

 

_6 November 2017_

 

Inaho settled back into the cockpit, fingers settling with the ease of familiarity over the controls.

“Nao? Are you doing okay?” Yuki’s worried voice crackled through his earpiece.

“The exercise hasn’t even started yet, Yuki.” Turning his head to survey all of the screens was about as difficult as he had expected. He made a note to keep the most significant data on the displays to his right, for swift access.

If Yuki had had it her way, he would not have come within fifteen meters of any kataphrakt ever again.

_“They can’t send you out on the field!” she had yelled, face red with fury._

_“I won’t be on the front lines,” he hand answered as he sorted his freshly-unpacked clothes into piles for storage, “I’ll just be there hanging back so that I can read the battle in real time, and respond accordingly.”_

_“I can not_ believe _that they are doing this– and that you’re letting them! This is dangerous, Nao! What if something happens? You could get hurt really badly– again!”_

_“I have my medication. There shouldn’t be any problems.”_

_“There WOULDN’T be any problems if you stayed back far away from the fighting! Or even better, stayed home! Where it’s safe!”_

_“What home, Yuki?” He had meant it as a straightforward question– there were several locations across the globe that the UFE had assigned for their use, as reward for services rendered– but Yuki had not taken it that way. Instead, she went silent, and her eyes widened, her face filling with distress._

_“Nao”– she began, but then had cut herself off and looked away, a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I can’t protect you like I’m supposed to. I can’t even give you a proper place to call home. Why am I trying to tell you what to do?”_

_That had been more than wrong, and he refused to let it stand. He had risen to his feet and walked over to her, concern bubbling uncomfortably within him. “Yuki, I did not mean it that way. Wherever you are– that’s home.”_

_Yuki let out a small, involuntary gasp. “Oh, Nao!” Then she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Thank you. So much.”_

_“I promise I’ll stay safe, Yuki.”_

_“I know,” she sighed, looking at him seriously. But then she smiled. “I love you, little brother.”_

_“I know.” He had paused for a second, and then brought his arms up to hug her back. “I love you too, big sister.” She had said nothing, but squeezed him tighter instead._

So here Inaho was. Back in the Sleipnir’s cockpit once more. This was a simple exercise, nothing more than move and hit a target. More than enough for as far back from the front line as he would be. He understood Yuki’s concern– she had wanted him out of the military since his eye had been injured. But he could not take the actions that would make her worry less. The military afforded him the access, the resources, the information, that he needed.

Not to mention, this way, neither Yuki nor himself would ever again have to struggle to make the budget balance at the end of the month, or choose between going hungry and going without heat, or have to beg Inko’s family for food.

Fighting was merely one of the ways he could protect his family.

“Alright… if you’re ready, Nao… then– Start!”

A few simple movements set the kataphrakt into motion down the course. His muscle memory had not forgotten the controls, then. Good. That would make this easier.

His reduced field of vision was already proving problematic. There were simply not enough screens on his right for the left camera feed and the right one, along with the weaponry and radar feeds. On this simple straight-shot walk portion of the course, that was no great hindrance, but in anything more challenging he would have to find a way to adapt.

“Alright, you’re coming up on the targeting section! Just hit each target with three rounds. Okay?” Yuki’s voice held a distinct note of worry; one that Inaho thought was uncalled for. Aiming at passive targets was not dangerous.

The first one popped up. A red-and-white circle. Inaho let the computer’s targeting system do the majority of the work. It was no challenge at all… but yet–

 _My attention is on the area I am aiming for. My blind side is wide open, and I have to pick between firing and watching it_. Dangerous on the battlefield.

 _Bang. Bang. Bang._ All of the rounds hit the target on-center. He moved on to the next. And the next. And the next. Each one was more difficult than the one before, as they grew clouded by debris, and challenged the targeting system with strange angles that required more complicated shots to hit.

Inaho felt the chill of the sheen of sweat forming on his forehead as he tightened his grip on the controls. He had thought that he was used to the lack of the analytical engine by now.

He had been wrong.

Inaho squinted through the targeting screen at the distant target– up a steep hill and slightly back from the ridge– and slowly brought the third shot into alignment. He had made it twice. It could be done again. It was a mere matter of aligning the crosshairs, compensating for the high angle and parabolic trajectory, accounting for the small breeze, and keeping his hand steady on the trigger as he pressed the button to fire–

A jolt of pain shot through his skull, brief but vicious. It left him dazed, unsteady, as though he had been cast into a deep lake and hung there, weightless and adrift.

Someone was yelling, high and tinny– couldn’t they stop? It was so pointless, such senseless noise. It made his head throb. Repetitive and jangling babble against his eardrums–

–“Naho! Nao! Inaho! Nao, can you hear me? Nao! Please! Say something!”

“… Yuki?” His own voice sounded faint and distant in his ears.

“Nao!” The relief in her voice was almost palpable even through the comlink. “Nao, what’s wrong? You’ve been standing there silent for a whole minute!”

“I…” _The eye. It must be… what they couldn’t separate from my nerves. And the rest of the trauma damage_. “The situation is under control.”

“That’s not an explanation! Nao, what is going on here?”

“It is not something you need to worry about.” _I will make sure of that_. “Am I clear to continue with the course?”

Yuki was silent for several seconds too long. Then– “… Yes.”

She did not go on.

The shot had gone far wide of the target by a hefty margin. Expected, but still poor results. Or rather, not expected: he had not been anticipating this sudden onset of symptoms. His current medication should have been sufficient to cover the potential problems. Clearly, it was not.

His missing eye _still_ throbbed faintly. This would be… a challenge.

≠

“Inaho, are you _sure_ you’re alright?”

“I have told you that several times, Yuki.” Not that her persistence was a surprise: he had missed seven shots throughout the course, one more on the stationary targets and five among the moving targets further down.

All in all, not an especially dramatic miss rate. But with the analytical engine, he would have made every single shot with ease.

Now…

The dull, aching pressure, as though someone were squeezing his skull, had dogged him throughout the course. When he tried to focus, the eye _that was not there_ burned. His altered visual field actually had little effect on his shots; the computer targeting system was sufficient to compensate. The misses arose from the sudden, flaring pain. They came without warning, and destroyed his ability to make a steady shot.

This would be more than dangerous on the field. It risked his safety, and the safety of those around him.

Yet, he could not hang back. They needed him there in the battle, in real time, regardless of the risks.

“Nao… I’m glad you’re okay, but… please don’t push yourself too much, alright?” Yuki smiled, a bit sad and a bit heavy. “You’ll make your big sister worry.”

He didn’t say, _“You’re already worried,”_ because they both knew that; it would be a waste of time to point it out. Instead, he said: “I’ll do what I can.”

She sighed. “Thanks, Nao. I know you will.” Then her smile brightened, but it looked rather forced. “And everyone else will be there to back you up, too!” Yuki threw an arm around his shoulders and squeezed, giving him an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

“Thank you, Yuki. Would you prefer fried or scrambled eggs tonight?”

“Don’t– don’t change the subject!”

 

≠≠≠

 

“The KS-1 Pegasus. The first flight-enabled mass-produced kataphrakt.”

Inko tried to keep her mouth from hanging open in amazement. The machines gleamed pale grey in the hangar floodlights, looming like great metallic insects in the stark light.

“You four have been selected for your past fighting experience and your reliable service to the United Forces of Earth. You will be the Cirrus platoon.”

One of the others in the new squad spoke up. “What are these things? They’re Martian. I’m not piloting a Martian kat.”

The colonel adjusted his glasses. “They are indeed powered by Aldnoah, and constructed using Martian alloys. But I assure you, Lieutenant Reichart, they are one hundred percent ours.”

Inko stared up at the line of machines. These things did look Martian. Very Martian. They were smaller, sleeker-looking, than any model Inko had piloted before. None of the boxy armor, no stabilizers, legs that looked spindly at best– forget Martian, these things didn’t even look battle ready.

“Sir,” she began, “I’m afraid I don’t get it– what tactical use do these kataphrakts have?”

“Ah,” he said, smiling as though he had been waiting for someone to ask, “Excellent question, corporal Amifumi. The answer is: these are completely unlike any kataphract you have piloted before. The KS-1 is designed for aerial attack patterns.”

“Wait,” said the woman who had spoken before, “these things can fly? Don’t we have jets for that?”

“Jets are poorly capable of successfully engaging an Aldnoah-powered machine, Lieutenant. The KS-1 has higher firepower and much better maneuverability than any military jet– and it can be used as a land assault vehicle as well, with no need to transfer to another machine.”

Inko blinked. Flying kats? Since when? Why why _why_ did the higher ups even want these things built? Perfectly ordinary kats moved just fine in space!

 _They aren’t expecting a fight in space_ , whispered an insidious voice from the back of her mind. _They want a ground fight. Not just this operation either. They want more maneuverability on their own turf._

Inko tried to suppress a shudder. That wasn’t going to happen. Not yet, at least. She needed to remember that. Bad possibilities didn’t mean bad futures.

The talking hadn’t stopped, the officer’s crisp, clipped voice still rang though the hangar– but Inko wasn’t listening. She had heard enough. She, and squad assembled here, would be piloting these kats into battle. A battle that would start soon. Very soon.

Surely, they would have training before the attack, so that they could become a cohesive unit… but she distinctly felt the lack of Yuki’s frenetic focus, Inaho’s calm confidence, Rayet’s determination and silent, casual camaraderie.

–“and so, how do these things fly exactly? I don’t see any wings.” The last half of Lieutenant Reichart’s sentence caught Inko’s attention again. How did these– admittedly pretty streamlined– machines get airborne?

The colonel clicked his tongue. “Of course you don’t. They have to be retractable for effective ground maneuvers, is that not apparent?”

“Well it’s fine and fancy to tell us they can fly, but I don’t see any flying!” snapped the Lieutenant.

“That,” smiled the officer, “is where the drills come in.”

 

≠≠≠

 

“So, Inaho,” Dr. Yagarai said, “you wanted to see me?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Yagarai adjusted his glasses. “And am I correct in assuming this has nothing to do with your personal health?”

Inaho paused. The violent stress headache was new, but mentioning it was not worth the risk of being declared unfit to fight. He could handle it on his own. There were more important matters at stake here. “Is this room under surveillance of any kind?”

Dr. Yagarai stilled, and looked at him steadily. “Interesting question. But no, to preserve the confidentiality of my patients’ information, this room is free of surveillance technology.”

“Good. This must be kept concealed, even from the UFE.”

“What”– the doctor began, but went silent as Inaho withdrew a thermo-sealed container from his pocket and held it out. Yagarai took it, turning it over in his hands until he found the latch.

“You can open it,” Inaho said. The contents were simple; only the vial of blood, with Slaine’s name carefully scraped away.

“A blood sample? Is this”–

“It’s not mine. I can’t say whose it is. I was told that it should be tested for trace chemicals.”

“Trace chemicals? Which ones? Inaho, is there some kind of poisoning going on here?”

“I… do not know. To both of those questions. That is why I hope you can help me, presuming you have the materials necessary.”

“I do not have such tools here, but I can access them.” Dr. Yagarai gave him a worried look. “I know you have your reasons for concealing information, so I won’t ask. But I hope you understand that this makes me very concerned, all the same.”

“Yes, doctor. I do understand.”

“Sometimes I wonder… but I will do my best to get you some results. This sample was kept on ice as much as possible, correct?”

“Yes. It should be in good condition.”

“Thank you for that information. And, Inaho…” Dr. Yagarai stood and looked down at him. “Make sure to take care of yourself too, alright?”

“Yes. I will.”

No sooner had he left the office than another unpredicted event occured.

“Inaho…?”

Inko’s mouth hung open ever so slightly, and her eyes were wide.

“Yes?”

“I…” she floundered for a second, but then bounced back, beaming. “Inaho! It’s so great to see you again!”

 _It has been a while. She has enjoyed and initiated hugs in the past. Perhaps_ …

Inaho held out his arms in what he judged to be an appropriate approximation of a hug-welcoming gesture– and was immediately rushed. He barely had time to brace himself so that they were not both thrown to the floor. “Hello, Inko.”

She giggled. “Been long enough hasn’t it! Who knew peace would be this busy!” She tightened the hug for a second, and then let go. “I missed you,” she said, serious this time.

“We have both been preoccupied. It is to be expected.”

“Yeah… and… Rayet.” Inko sighed. “She talked to you before she went missing?”

“Yes.”

Inko made no effort to smile again. “It feels like we’re all drifting apart… me with my new squad, Rayet off wherever, you doing… your secret-y things, Nina and Calm still with the Deucalion…”

“We’re all here now, other than Rayet,” he observed.

She blinked. “You know what? You’re right. I mean, it’s not great that a military operation is the thing to bring us back together… but hey, whatever works!” She clapped him on the back, and he huffed faintly. “So, what have you been up to?”

“Firing practice.”

“Hey cool, I’m just heading off to drills with my squad! Want to come watch?”

It would be a good opportunity to see the new kataphrakt line in action. He had only seen schematics so far– and if he were to use them to their full potential in battle, he would have to know how they worked in motion. “Yes. I do.”

Inko bounced just a little with eagerness. “Awesome! Just follow me, I think there’s a good spot over on a hill by the field!”

 

≠≠≠

 

Inko undid her harness straps as the cockpit opened with a pneumatic hiss. The Pegasus was low enough to the ground when landed that she didn’t even need to use the lift; she could just jump right down onto a leg, and from there to the ground, with ease.

“Nice work there, Cirrus-33!” called Lt. Reichart. She was an impressive, imposing woman– pale, but towering far above Inko in height, and sporting a sandy mane that fell in wild waves halfway down her back. The role of platoon leader fitted her like a glove.

There were two others in the squad– a small, dark man who’s round, frightened-looking eyes belied his steady hand in maneuvers, and a lithe woman with warm mahogany skin and a quick eye for danger, who could make Lt. Reichart crow out a laugh with her soft voice. Together, they made a good squad. Inko still felt the lack of familiar faces keenly… but this would do for now.

“You’re good with 3-D maneuvering– are you sure you weren’t a pilot in a past life?” the Lieutenant called.

Inko laughed lightly. “Nope, no reincarnation here! I guess I picked it up fighting in the satellite belt. When you’re in the thick of it up there you really have to be able to move, and move fast.”

“The space fights, then?” Reichart twisted the cap off her canteen and tossed back a mouthful of water. “It was dangerous as all fuck up there, from what I heard. What was a kid like you doing fighting in that mess?”

“Oh… well, I was with the Deucalion. That was what we did. We were the strongest; we had to go to the worst places. And Inaho was there…” She glanced to where he sat off the far side of the field, chin resting on his knees.

“Ah yeah, you know _the_ Kaizuka don’t you? Must be pretty cool, right?”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d say cool… I mean, we’ve known each other since we were kids, it’s not really a big deal for us.”

“So,” the woman said, gesturing loosely in his direction, “is he all full of himself about being a big shot?”

“No!” Inko frowned. “He’s very… reserved about it all. He doesn’t see himself as particularly heroic. I don’t think he cares.”

“Interesting.” Reichart lifted an eyebrow thoughtfully. “He’s hard to get a read on, from a distance.”

“He’s hard to get a read on up close,” Inko sighed.

“That taciturn type then?”

“I– I think… a bit,” Inko admitted.

The lieutenant smirked. “He’s smaller than I imagined,” she said.

For half a second Inko bristled, but then she deflated. “You have a point… he always has been kind of… short.”

“So, soldiers! How goes the drill work?”

Inko glanced up at the shout, and then leapt to her feet. “Captain Magbaredge! Commander Mizusaki!” She made to salute, but the captain waved it away.

“No need for such formalities at this point in time, Amifumi.”

Lt. Reichart spoke up. “The drills are beautiful. Our form is perfect. You taught these kids well, Darzana!”

Magbaredge smiled. “It wasn’t me. I merely organized them. I doubt I’d have the patience for brat-training. I prefer to leave that kind of thing to Marito and Kaizuka– wait, you’d probably know her as Kaizuka senior now, right?”

“The little brother overshadows his sister,” the Lieutenant said. “I don’t think I’ve met either of them, but I’m sure it would be a very interesting encounter”–

The abrupt, jarring wail of emergency sirens filled the field, echoing through the air over the base.

“Missiles… Missiles on the radar!” Mizusaki called with her hand pressed to her earpiece, voice laced with a shrill undertone of fear.

“Looks like they aren’t waiting for us to strike first,” Magbaredge said grimly. “Those won’t be big rockets– they’re just testing the waters. But still– everyone inside, and prepare yourselves to form up! If they want to prod us awake with their little pop rockets then we’ll come at them roaring!”

For a second Inko could do nothing but stand there, frozen, staring off towards the still-empty sky that hid the landing castle behind the horizon.

 _This is it_ , she thought, her heart beating like a drum in her ears.

_The battle has begun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! All kudos/comments are greatly appreciated (and will be replied to eventually, I swear).
> 
> Lieutenant Reichart is a "real" canon character– as can be seen in Captain Magbaredge's academy photo here, third from top left: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/aldnoahzero/images/6/6a/Wikia-Visualization-Add-6%2Caldnoahzero.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/185?cb=20140705110845&format=webp


	9. 1.9 | Breathless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She gasped for breath, hauling at the controls with spasming sweat-slick fingers. The screech of metal filled the cockpit. It tore at her ears–_
> 
>  
> 
> _The world twisted, and–_

Inaho felt the zipper fasten cold over the skin of his throat as he drew it closed. His hands did not shake; his mind not still, but neither chaotic. Battle was no novelty. He prepared now much as he had dozens of times before.

The Martian forces would be using standard attack methods– or so it was reasonable to assume. Air-to-ground fire from the castle, drones, and the obvious: the Count’s kataphrakt.

Little was known about the kataphrakt they would be facing. Count Rhyos Anseld was not a young man, but neither was he old. He piloted the Isidis, which had never been observed during engagement with enemy forces. That did not rule out invisibility capabilities, but there was no other evidence about it. He– not just him, no, Yuki and Inko and everyone else– would be going into battle unprepared.

Inaho abruptly realized his hand was resting on the eye patch. Again. He lowered it, pushing away the shiver that crept along his skin. The kat suits were made of a material that was cold to the touch at first. There was nothing more to it.

_Even if there is_ , he thought as he rose in the lift up to the cockpit, adjusting his earpiece, _fear will not help them now_.

 

≠≠≠

 

Inko shifted uneasily in her seat, hands twisted together in her lap. Her fingers itched to be on the controls, but they were too precise. No nervous fiddling. Hands off, until the order to move.

“Holding up, Cirrus-33?”

Inko started at the voice through her com, then smiled. “Ah, yeah, thanks Cirrus-22– I’m doing fine.” Really, she was. This wasn’t her first battle, or her second, or third…

Actually, she couldn’t remember what number battle this was. Not… not that it mattered. Like she had told Nina– You never got used to it.

The Cirrus platoon was the spearhead of this operation. With their flight capabilities, they could slip right over the traps laid in the no-man’s-land between here and the landing castle– but more importantly, report them for the ground squads to avoid.

A distant rumble echoed through the air, and shivered through the metal of the kats all the way through Inko’s bones. She couldn’t help the nervous glance she cast upwards, even though she knew that everyone was safe.

For now.

 

≠≠≠

 

Asseylum’s fingers tightened their grip around the loose fabric of her skirt. “So, then, their fight has begun?”

Klancain nodded once, silent and solemn.

She took a shuddering breath. She hadn’t wanted this. She hadn’t wanted any of it. Civil strife tearing at Vers, Count Morgaine off in her splinter cell in the polar mines, Inaho and all his friends and allies in danger once again, Lemrina’s hateful eyes, and Slaine, everything that had happened to him– that she had done to him. This was no peace: peace would not raise the taste of bile in the back of her throat.

Klancain’s hand came down over hers, a comforting gesture. Asseylum glanced up, eyes wide, and took in his soft smile.

“I know you worry for your Terran friends. But do not fear too greatly. They have proven themselves many times over. They will be safe.”

She answered his smile, the tension in her face making the sensation of it unsettlingly foreign. “I know. But thank you, regardless.”

_I am sorry_ , she thought to the distant and embattled. _I am sorry I could not save you from this. I should have been able to. Yet, I failed_.

 

≠≠≠

 

“Shields up!” shouted Lieutenant Riechart, “We’re moving out!

The order came abruptly, but the first syllable was barely out of the Lieutenant’s mouth before Inko’s hands sprang to the controls. She was wound tight as a spring and more than ready to release some of that tension.

“The enemy kat has been sighted on satellite and radar!” Reichart continued, “Keep your wits about you, and don’t depend on those shields to protect you if they nail you with a direct shot! Remember, we don’t know what this thing can do– so always assume it will destroy you if you get close enough!”

“Better safe than sorry,” Cirrus-44’s quiet murmur carried through the com link as, in unison, the squad lifted off the ground.

The KS-1 had a combined propulsion system: standard rocket propulsion, magnetic levitation, and a very slight antigravity field from the aldnoah drive. Along with the wings that folded neatly out from their housings as the squad rose, all systems coordinated sleekly to keep them aloft.

They had to.

Inko’s eyes instinctively scanned the sky before them and the ground beneath, even though she knew that the on-board defense system would see anything coming long before she did. It was a comfort thing.

“Volley incoming! Keep your asses covered!”

Inko zeroed in on the black dots that had showed themselves in the distance. Radar pings rang in her ears. Faster and faster every second, until they blurred together into one jarring, electric noise–

She veered starboard, watching vapor trails spin around her. It was perfectly silent. If she hadn’t been so focused, it might have been eerie. She didn’t care. The heat of battle was on her, singing in her taut muscles and aching in her gritted teeth.

Her eyes widened. “The castle! I see it!”

“There it is! Well spotted, Cirrus-33! That means we’ll be meeting the big gun soon. Keep your wits about you!”

The landing castle couldn’t loom– it was too distant for that– but it hovered there, a scratch on the sky as they sped towards it. The ground was a blur of brown and shadows as they flew by.

This entire place was a trap, waiting to spring shut on them any second. Inko’s grip creaked around the controls. There was a bead of sweat forming chilly on her forehead, though the climate control in the cockpit was perfect.

There was a blip on the radar.

Close.

One second empty space, next second–

“INCOMING!” Inko screamed, her kat yawing wide as she scattered. The others were but a breath behind her. Where they had been, there was a flash of light–

Then the shockwave hit. She felt as though a mountain had rammed her. For a second, the world was a gray, buzzing blur. Then, like a camera coming back into focus, the world regained sharpness. Inko searched frantically for her squad and breathed a quick sigh of relief when she spotted all of them.

“The Martian has come out to play!” the Lieutenant shouted, her voice shakier than usual. “It has those fun party poppers, but we don’t know what else– don’t let it catch you off guard!”

Inko’s heart beat cold and frantic in her chest. That thing had come from literally nowhere– had it been hiding? Camouflaged? Underground? A shiver worked up and down her spine.

This was a Martian kat. Who knew what it was capable of.

 

≠≠≠

 

“Enemy kataphrakt sighted. Cirrus squad currently engaging.”

The report crackled through the comlink, and Inaho made note of it. There was an unexpected lack of traps in the no-man’s land. Not a single one had been sighted: no snares or explosives or pits. Traps may not have been a large element in Martian defenses during the war, but there had been months for some kind of fortifications to be laid out here.

The lack of traps was a piece. This count’s sheer stubbornness was another; either he possessed some weapon that made him think he could win, or he wanted to go out fighting. The pieces were there, but there was no picture yet.

_If I had the analytical engine_ … Inaho thought, and as if in answer, the space where it should have been gave a faint throb. His breath froze in his chest. _No, no, not now_. He had taken as much medication as was safe to take.

There was no use for panic. He could handle this. It had been much worse before, in much more intense battles.

He had survived those. He would survive this too.

“Keep squads spread out,” Inaho said into his com, “Do not provide clustered targets for shots from the landing castle or the enemy kataphrakt.” It was stating the obvious. But sometimes people needed the obvious laid out for them in clear terms before they could see it.

Other than the Cirrus squad, the field was strangely silent.

Inaho settled in to wait. Silence never held long, in battle.

Most of his battles with Troyard had been silent. Yet, they had never felt that way; the silence had been full, full of the constant interplay of action and reaction, a chess match made of bullets and the starry depths of space.

Was it possible to know someone without ever speaking to him? Inaho supposed not. Slaine Troyard had always been frustratingly out of reach. Even now, he still was. Physical proximity did nothing to make the man easier to comprehend.

Inaho’s own lack of that ability that other people seemed to have, of recognizing the emotional states of others– and what his own actions would do to change them– likely contributed to his difficulty here. It had never bothered him before. Yet now… it was an obstacle, blocking his way to his goal.

“Drone units sighted straight ahead!”

Inaho’s gaze lurched up at the alert. Now was not the time to strategize about distant situations and hypothetical possibilities. This was battle.

His eye flared once again.

He ignored it.

 

≠≠≠

 

“Shit!”

The shockwaves from the drone’s explosion shook Inko’s kat as she sped away with another three on her tail. Was there no end to the damn things? For every one she blew up, another one appeared through the smoke. Martians usually had a distaste for this kind of anonymous cannon fodder. Was the Count really desperate enough to change his mind?

_Well_ , she thought, gritting her teeth as she spun through a hail of bullets, _last stands tend to make people desperate, don’t they? If he’s gonna go down, he’s gonna hurt us as bad as he can first. But then… why no traps anywhere?_

Then, all thoughts were blasted from her mind as she rammed the engine to max, speeding away in an attempt to escape the missiles that arced up from the ground towards her. _Where are they coming from?_ She thought frantically as the acceleration pulled back on her body. No kataphrakt could move that fast– and yet the Count’s kat seemed to be hitting them from angles all over the place, with barely enough time to reload between.

The kat! There it was, angling up another shot– Inko didn’t spare time to think, just reacted. Her shell shot down, and she cranked the throttle again, racing through the clouds of smoke and debris to get away from the missiles tailing her–

They exploded behind her, and the world shook.

As the universe stopped reeling and up and down became up and down once more, Inko squinted at the damage display. Left wing at 78%. Right wing 80%. Cockpit shields at 91%, and landing gear at 88%. For a first time out, this machine was holding on okay.

Even as she reveled in the _crunch_ of another direct hit on a drone, she wondered grimly how well this spindly thing would hold up to a direct shot. The Aerion had been able to take barely one. Two, if you were lucky. Walking fireballs, those things.

_Well… if you can’t beat them_ , she thought, the images of those great gleaming monstrous Martian kats heavy on her mind, _join them_.

Her squad… where was the Cirrus squad? Around her was nothing but smoke and sky for miles. The ground platoons below fought hovering flocks of drones in the pinprick lights of shells bursting– she could almost hear, out of habit, the echoing percussion of gunfire.

Then, the com crackled with jarring static. Inko flinched. “Hello? Anyone? Cirrus squad, come in”–

The static abruptly resolved into words. “– saw it! The fucking thing just vanished right in front of my eyes! One second there, then the next, nope!”

It was Cirrus-44, and hearing the panic in his usually calm voice rattled Inko more than she would have liked to admit. “Cirrus-44!” She said, “You have to calm down and tell us what happened. What did you see?”

“What– what, what did I see? I saw an entire kataphrakt vanish into thin air! That’s what I saw!” His voice shook as he spoke.

Inko’s eyes widened. “Are you… are you sure?”

“I know what I saw! There is no possible way I could have mistaken it for anything else. I know what the Count’s kat looks like. And I know I saw it vanish.”

 

≠≠≠

 

“…I know what the Count’s kat looks like. And I know I saw it vanish.”

Inaho heard the message relayed over the long-distance coms. Simultaneously with the desperate screams of a squad, half a kilometer from the Cirrus squad’s location, suddenly under attack from Count Anseld’s kataphrakt. There was no way a large, ungainly, non-flight-enabled machine like that would be able to cover that distance so swiftly.

Near-instantaneous travel. The lack of ground traps. The Count’s seeming overconfidence. The answer arrived fully formed in Inaho’s mind:

The kat was teleporting. Perhaps via a more limited version of the duplication mechanism another kat had wielded against him in the past.

With a few flicks of his fingers, he called up its reported movements. Even if it was teleporting, it had to have a pattern. Limits. Weaknesses.

First reported location: Cirrus Squad’s initial skirmish point. Then, attacking Cirrus squad from half a kilometer away from that location. Another jump of 0.4 kilometers. Then 0.2. After that, it disappeared completely from the area, appearing several seconds later a kilometer away to attack the ground lines. There, it jumped frequently– the intervals varied between one second and several minutes.

Inaho’s eye narrowed. The jump distance was always a kilometer or less. There was a high likelihood of that being the spatial limit.

He ignored the steady pressure building at his temples like a tightening vise.

“The Martian kataphrakt is moving instantaneously from point to point without warning. Expect it to appear near you at any time. Continue observing it and reporting back anything significant.” He said into the general com link. The basics of the pattern had formed.

Now, for the details.

 

≠≠≠

 

“Cirrus squad!” the squad leader called, “Form up! Our orders have changed! As the most mobile unit, we have been assigned to track the enemy kataphrakt!”

Inko frowned. “We’re not going for the landing castle anymore?”

“Did you hear my orders? I don’t like repeating myself,” the Lieutenant snapped. Then, a sigh crackled through Inko’s earpiece. “Sorry, Amifumi. I don’t get it either. Not like we could have cracked a landing castle open with these spindly insects anyway.”

“No apology necessary, Lieutenant,” Inko said crisply. “I spoke without thinking.”

Cirrus-22 broke in. “We should get to tracking that thing.”

“Yes. Cirrus squad, to me! The second we’re in formation, I want all of us on that thing’s shiny metal ass, got it?”

“Yes sir!” Inko chorused, hearing her own words echoed by the other two.

 

≠≠≠

 

Inaho closed his eye– just briefly.

A trend was being established. The kataprakt was jumping. But it wasn’t random.

It was advancing, slowly, by parts, towards his location.

Perhaps it was merely a coincidence– after all, the entire UFE base of operations was in the same direction. It would be very logical to attack there.

But he would not eliminate any possibilities without evidence to prove them wrong.

“Inaho! The kat! The shells– I hit it with a shell and I can still see it buried in the plating! It’s jumped around a lot– what does that mean?”

His thoughts clicked into place at Inko’s words. _That’s it. Anything in direct contact with the kataphrakt body is included in the teleportation field. Getting close enough to do so is risky… but will end this quickly._

“Grab on to it. If you are touching it when it teleports, you’ll be taken with it.”

“Inaho, that’s crazy!” Inko yelled, dropping any military pretenses.

“Currently the Count just teleports away from whoever is attacking him and makes a surprise attack when he appears again. Someone has to attach so they can constantly attack. Compared to the other kataphrakts we have fought before,” he continued, flicking through the display screens and trying to ignore the way his heartbeat accelerated at what he was saying, “this one has weak defenses. Several direct hits to a critical point should be enough.”

 

≠≠≠

 

Inko bit back a snarl. Easy for Inaho to say _grab onto it. He_ wasn’t the one watching the thing disappear and reappear out of range with a _BANG_ of displaced air. “Inaho, I can’t just grab it! It’ll fucking shred me!”

“The reinforced build of your kat will protect you from most direct physical attacks for a short period of time.”

“How long? Inaho, “a short period of time” is not helpful!”

“There is no way to tell. However, its defenses are focused on long-range weaponry. It is unlikely to have much, if any, short-range weapons. If it did, it would be using them.”

“That isn’t really much to go on!” she said shrilly, eyes widened.

But… it was possible, wasn’t it? The kataphrakt was actually pretty slow; much slower than her and the rest of the Cirrus squad, in their Pegasi. It barely dodged. Was fleeing its lone defense strategy?

Then, as she watched, it went completely still. Didn’t even move to shoot.

“Inaho?” she said, voice high, “why isn’t it moving? Why did it stop?”

“I don’t”– he began, but the signal was interrupted by the violent concussion of the kataprackt appearing just beneath Inko’s kat. She screamed, clutching the controls white knuckled as she struggled to keep control of the craft.

Almost before she had recovered, there was another _bang_ as air rushed in to fill the empty space left by the kat’s disappearance. And there it was, far down the battlefield–

Towards the base, she realized with a chill running up and down her spine. Towards Inaho.

The thought congealed sickeningly in her mind as the kataprakt winked out of existence once more. Her heart was hammering, with all the abruptness and terror of a stampede. She jammed the thrusters to max– she had to catch up, she had to–

Projectiles would be useless at close range, so what else was there? Wait! The one short-range they had been equipped with: a blade, housed in the right upper limb.

_Okay, so I have a plan kinda,_ she thought, biting her lip hard enough to taste blood. _Nail the thing with a cable, reel in super fast, use the knife to hack up any critical spots I can reach while clinging. No problem! Ok, maybe not no problem, but… better than nothing._

The world in the periphery cameras was a blur. She didn’t even try to track the teleporting. She just made a direct course for Inaho. Coms had been hacked before. That had to be how the Count found him, and any Martian worth their salt knew Inaho Kaizuka.

He would be the Count’s first target.

“Not if I have anything to do with it!” Inko snarled between her teeth at the air. Her vision was locked straight forwards. No squad, no allies, nothing. None of it mattered. The only important thing was–

_BANG_

Her hands twisted the controls before her conscious mind registered the concussion. Time seemed to slow, as her craft spun around and her finger tightened on the anchor trigger.

It hit home with a visceral shock, and the wire sang as she dove through the air. Closer, closer, almost–

She slammed into it with a scream of clashing metal. The jolt threw her against her harness with bruising force, hard enough that her whiplash collar sprung up around her head.

“Inaho!” Inko screamed into her com, “I got it! I’m on it! I”–

Then the world warped like wax in summer heat, everything going distorted and blurry and _wrong_.

 

≠≠≠

 

Inaho’s eye narrowed. “Cirrus-33?”

No response. The transmission had cut, and now it was silent.

He felt a terrible, cold stillness. The kind he had felt twice before.

Once, watching Okisuke vanish into the shimmering side of a kataphrakt. The second time, blood spattering on his face as Asseylum’s hand tore from his grip.

“Inko?”

This time, the silence broke. “What was that? What– what was that? God”– Inko sounded on the edge of tears. “Never again, never, no–“

“Inko,” Inaho said, suppressing a surge of relief, “Your location beacon now shows you to be ten kilometers from base. You made contact with the enemy kat?”

“I– yes!” She half-screamed. “What the fuck just happened to me?! Inaho, help, _please_ ”–

“Stay calm. You teleported along with the kat, as we suspected.” He controlled the fear her uneven, gasping breaths awoke in his chest. “Try to find a weak point.”

“Okay,” she panted, “Okay, O”–

Her com cut out once more. Prepared this time, Inaho watched the locator signal.

The pattern… he could feel it. Five hundred meters. Eight hundred. Nine hundred fifty. Four hundred. One kilometer. The teleportation distance was not the same, so that wasn’t the jump pattern.

Seven hundred fifty. Six hundred.

Inko’s strangled cry of distress broke into his thoughts. His eye darted to the reappeared readout.

Nine kilometers from base.

It all crystallized.

“Inko,” he said, speaking quickly, “it can jump a kilometer every teleport. It is nine kilometers from my current location, which appears to be its goal. You”–

Her com went silent again.

Inaho’s eye throbbed suddenly, violently. He clutched at it involuntarily, gritting his teeth. _Not now **not now**_ –

“I– I think I’m starting to get used to this,” Inko said, voice shaking.

“Inko, you have eight jumps,” he bit out. “Then it reaches here.”

 

≠≠≠

 

“Eight?” Inko yelped, dragging her scattered mind back into line. With a yank of the handles, she secured her hold. Her hands were so damp that her thumb nearly slipped off the button to deploy the knife. Her heart leapt to her mouth–

Everything inverted horribly once more, then snapped into place with an abruptness that made her stomach roil.

“Seven jumps, now,” Inaho said in her ear as she tried not to throw up.

She bit back a whimper, impulsively driving the knife into the nearest surface with a jarring resistance of metal plating and Martian alloys clashing.

_The core you idiot_ , she snapped at herself. Go for the core, break the casing and the whole system goes to shit–

She would have screamed, but she had no mouth to scream with. There was no _her_ to scream. No air to scream into.

It came out as a choked squeak when reality re-formed around her.

“Six jumps.”

Wildly, she forced her knife over and over into the metal skin of the kat. The kataphrakt bucked, trying to dislodge her at last. She clung on grimly, each strike shaking her small kat. A gout of smoke obscured the cameras but she kept on, blind and tenacious. Her bangs clung to her clammy forehead, sweat stinging her eyes–

Through the smoke, she saw it. The core casing, the core! It had to be! She slammed her kat’s arm into it, not bothering with the knife, and the surface crumpled beneath the blow–

The nightmare nothingness ate her up, and spat her back out.

“Five jumps.”

The dented surface gave way easily beneath the sharp point. Inko desperately dragged her knife through the layers of shielding as Inaho’s calm tones crackled through her earpiece. Then, there was that terrible, rending, _wrong_ feeling again, and–

“Four jumps.”

She gasped for breath, hauling at the controls with spasming sweat-slick fingers. The screech of metal filled the cockpit. It tore at her ears–

The world twisted, and–

“Three jumps.”

The kataphrakt was thrashing wildly, trying to throw her off, but she held on grimly, hacking deeper into the core casing, before–

“Two jumps.”

Too close, too close, she didn’t know if she could stop this thing in time, why didn’t Inaho sound more _worried_ about this, the fucking thing was almost right on top of him–

“One jump.”

Her movements were frantic now. Metal tore like paper under her knife, showers of shrapnel and sparks and torn wires flying free. There– there was the core, one more strike–

The universe inverted and reverted in a heartbeat, and there they were looming next to Inaho’s kat– on his left, on his blind side, she realized with taut panic.

 

≠≠≠

 

Slaine stared down at the food on his plate. His eyes felt dull, aching, tired. He shivered slightly, then clenched his fist out of habit. Living off of memory rather than food wouldn’t work. He knew that.

Still, he would have taken warmth in his hands over any delicately prepared dish, right now.

He forced himself to swallow two mouthfuls of what they had given him. It tasted of sand and ashes. His throat constricted; for a moment, he wanted to vomit it all back up from where it sat like a rock in his stomach.

But then, the moment passed. He shivered again. He wished the guards would just realize he couldn’t eat anything else, so that they would take him back to his cell. A heavy blanket had appeared there one evening. Slaine hadn’t tried to understand why they weren’t worried about him hanging himself with it anymore. More than likely, it was Kaizuka’s doing.

Slaine didn’t know, and he didn’t care. All that mattered was that it was easier to fall asleep. He might not have even left the bed if they didn’t order him out of it for meals, showers, and medical exams.

They didn’t cuff him for the walk back to the cell. They rarely cuffed him at all, recently. Kaizuka again? Maybe. Maybe Slaine could ask the bastard the next time he showed his face.

 

≠≠≠

 

The seconds seemed to draw out reality like some sickening surrealist painting, as the Martian kataphrakt lunged toward the Sleipnir. Too fast. Faster than her strike descended on the core. Inko kept on, mouth opening to shout a warning that would never reach him in time, knowing it was too late–

 

≠≠≠

 

Slaine curled up on his mattress, knees tucked up against his chest and the blanket enveloping him with a comfortable weight that soon began to gather body heat over his limbs.

He heard something.

Or… wait, had he? Something had made him bolt upright, muscles twanging with tension like a misfired bowstring. Yet, the world was silent.

 

≠≠≠

 

The twin impacts rattled Inko to the bone, and the blooming explosion from the core breach threw her back like flotsam on a breaker.

 

≠≠≠

 

Slaine’s gaze snapped to the hallway as the silence was broken by the cry of a bird, hollow and distant, that echoed achingly in his chest.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I… should probably stop apologizing for chapter delays. But I really did think this one would be out faster! Sorry about that, everyone– and thank you for your lovely comments! They are helpful, mood-boosting, and motivating!
> 
> This time, I won't attempt to promise anything about the next update– but I am getting very tired of updating once a month (or less!) and I'm sure you readers are too. I am going to try to be faster. We'll see if it works! 
> 
> However, since this is one week until the anniversary of airing of episode 24… I can say I am planning something very… _interesting_ for next Monday. I hope you all will enjoy it!
> 
> Thank you to Ku for beta-ing (since my usual beta was too busy, sadly).


	10. 1.10 | Pressure Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Slaine swallowed again, throat strangely thick and tight. “Oh,” he choked out. He turned his face away, letting his unkempt fall of hair cover his eyes and cursing the damn dampness in them._

As soon as her kat recovered she was back upright, frantically scanning the debris area. Everything was charred and smoking, and– _shit_ – one of her sensors had been damaged.

“Count Anseld’s kataphrakt is down! Medevac team to my location, ASAP!” she shrilled into the line to the base. With shaking fingers Inko scanned the field for the Sleipnir’s signal. Waiting, waiting, waiting– There!

Without pausing to let herself think she opened a com link. “Inaho! Inaho! Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

For a terrible, chest-crushing second there was nothing but static.

Then–

“… Inko? Was the plan successful?”

She nearly sobbed with relief. “Yes– I think– I don’t know, who cares! Are you alright?”

“I… I think I was hit…” His voice was muffled, dazed. Inko’s relief evaporated like morning mist. Inaho did not sound okay.

“Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t… know. Can breathe.” He paused for an alarmingly long second. “Can taste blood.”

Inko’s eyes widened. “Blood? From where?”

“Don’t know. Not lungs.”

“Can you eject?”

“… jammed. Won’t work.”

“Okay! Just stay still and… keep breathing! I’ll find a way to dig you out!”

The Sleipnir was half-way covered by the blistered wreck of the Martian kat– and in worse condition than Inko’s Pegasus despite how close they had both been to the blast.

Inko blocked out the whining of the damage alarms, hauling at a shattered chunk of metal. A chunk, she realized with a sick surge of horror, that had embedded itself into the side of the Sleipnir cockpit.

Wait, it was no shrapnel. This was the count’s kat– or the arm of it, anyway. She flinched at the screech of metal that rang out when she pulled it free.

 

≠≠≠

 

Inaho blinked slowly. Lights flickered in the background, a soothing rhythm.

There was something… something he was forgetting…

Something digging into his shoulders… straps… harness? An insistent beeping, near and gratingly repetitive, made him turn his head in search of the source.

Red… icons flashing on the screen… armor plating damage?

Something like awareness filtered through the sludge of his thoughts. The battle, the battle with the Count, the kataphrakt appearing within meters of his position, Inko’s kat just barely visible past its bulk…

“–naho! Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

Inko. Inko had made it, which must mean…“Inko? Was the plan successful?”

“Yes– I think– I don’t know, who cares! Are you alright?”

Her voice was high-pitched, sharp. He blearily scanned the cockpit, and reached out to give a tentative yank to the joysticks– and aborted the movement almost immediately as his wrist flared with pain. “I… I think I was hit…”

“Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t… know. Wrist. Can breathe.” Something rich, metallic on his tongue… “Can taste blood.”

“Blood? From where?”

“Don’t know.” He took a careful, testing breath, and felt no strain. “Not lungs.”

“Can you eject?”

He reached out, wary of jostling his injured arm. Carefully he thumbed the switch with his uninjured hand, and “… jammed. Won’t work.”

From the pain he felt, even through the amount of adrenaline currently in his system, Inaho thought distantly that this wrist was going to hurt very badly when he was clearheaded. Likely by that point he would be on a sufficient dosage of pain medication to not notice.

Somewhere beyond the confines of the– slowly warming– cockpit, Inko was shifting debris off him. Her concerned voice crackled through the radio every few minutes. He made an effort to respond, it was straightforward search-and-rescue tactics, make sure that the victim is stable condition and track their position…

A shrill scream of metal on metal– close, harsh, grating– made him start. He blinked– and a dull ache woke in his left eye socket.

“Inaho!”

“… yes?”

“Nothing, just you went really quiet there and I got worried”– Inko babbled in his ear, and he lost the string of the sentence swiftly. His eye throbbed sharply with each beat of his heart.

Sounds were strangely dulled, now. Had more shrapnel fallen on his kat?

Loud, noise and shouting and voices. Bright light, hurting his eye. Body lifted, pain jarring up his arm and through his skull.

If only they would let him just…

 _Sleep_ …

“Can you hear me?”

The voice broke the haze. He blinked, slowly, and nodded.

“Good. You’re going to be okay. Can you add five and seven for me?”

“… twelve.”

“You’re doing great, hon. Subtract seventeen from twenty-two.”

He took a deep breath, air rolling in and out of his chest like water. “Five.”

“Wonderful, wonderful.” A painfully bright light shone in his eye, and he reflexively jerked away. Only to have a hand catch his head and turn it back to the light. “Stay still now for me, okay?”

“Mmm,” he slurred, trying to focus. “Alright, then.” Some part of him noted they were likely testing his pupil’s reaction to light. Poor reflexes of those muscles often indicated head trauma.

The rest of him was acutely aware of each shift and jolt as he was placed on a gurney and moved. The effects of adrenaline were wearing away, and he felt it.

There was sky above him. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? Black and deep and arched with stars. Familiar. Comforting.

Then, it was blocked. Ceiling, low and close, much closer than the sky.

“Okay, I’m going to give you something to help you rest. So just relax.”

Inaho didn’t waste energy responding. Barely felt the needle in his arm. He was tired. There was no reason to fight it when what he really did want was… to…

 _Sleep_ …

 

≠≠≠

 

_7 November 2017_

 

Inko shrugged the collar off her shoulders, foot tapping in a reflexive release of residual adrenaline. The medics had fluttered around her as long as they could spare before rushing off to see to the casualties from the rest of the battle– which had ended swiftly after the defeat of the Count. She had been lucky enough to escape with bruises on her back and shoulder, and where her harness straps had held her. Inaho, on the other hand…

Inaho had been whisked away by the medevac team, and– she knew why, but it still grated at her like sand in her suit– she wasn’t allowed to see him until the doctors declared his condition stable. Which might not be for hours! It was already one fucking AM, but there was no way in hell she would be able to sleep.

 _Still_ , she told herself firmly, _at least you know he isn’t dead. Just… hurt. Somewhere. Maybe somewheres, plural. Okay, stop thinking about it_.

She shook the suit off her legs and yanked the first shirt she could grab down over her head. Hopping stiltedly away, she frantically dialed Yuki’s number with one hand while hauling jeans up over her hips with the other. She almost lost her balance with sheer relief when the call went through and someone picked up.

“Yuki! Are you okay?”

Yuki’s voice echoed down the line. “Inko! I’m so glad to hear from you! I’m fine, don’t worry about me. It’s Nao I’m worried about, he won’t answer his phone! I’m going crazy here!”

Inko went very still, one foot still caught in the end of a pant leg. Yuki hadn’t been told yet? “Yuki… I’m sorry.” No wait, that sounded real bad. “He’s not dead! Don’t worry! He got hurt, during the fighting. They took him to the field hospital.”

For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of heavy, sharp breathing over the line. Then, Yuki’s voice again, trembling. “How… how bad?”

“Not”– Inko tried to keep an upbeat tone, “um, not that bad! He was conscious when they got him out of there. I’m sure he’s going to be fine!”

“Got him out of where?!”

Inko winced. “His… kat. The Martian Count got to him before I could stop it, and it… it got Inaho as it went down.”

“But– but you said he isn’t badly hurt, right?“

“Yeah, he’s not going to die. He’ll be fine.” _Just keep saying that to yourself_ , Inko ordered herself.

“How did it happen?”

“The thing teleported right to where he was. He had no time to block it, or even react…”

Nothing but a shivery breath came from the speaker.

Inko went on, her throat tight. “I’m… I’m sorry I couldn’t keep him safe, Yuki.”

“No, no, no, don’t apologize to me. It isn’t your fault. I know you did what you could. You said he’ll be okay. It’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t fine!” The words burst out of Inko without conscious approval. She paled. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that”–

“I know what you meant. Don’t worry about it. And don’t beat yourself up over it either.”

“But I”–

“It was his choice to go out on the field! He knew it could be dangerous, he knew there would be risks, and he accepted that! I know that doesn’t”– Yuki’s voice rose as she spoke, but then she went abruptly silent for a moment before rallying. “It doesn’t change that he got hurt. But remember, it isn’t your fault!”

“Yuki…” Inko’s grip tightened on her phone. “We’ll be okay, won’t we?”

Yuki did not ask who. She merely responded, “Yes.”

Inko hung up.

 

“Cirrus-33!”

Inko’s head jerked in the direction of the shout.

“What are you doing? Why are you not filing your report?”

“Colonel! I was just changing out of my uniform and checking up on my friends! Um, sir.”

“You have far too much to explain, Amifumi! Report to your commanding officer and stop wasting time lazing about”–

“Is there a problem here?”

Both spun to stare at the source of interruption. Captain Magbaredge stood, serenely, in the entranceway.

“There most certainly is!” the Colonel spat. “Didn’t you teach these runts discipline?”

“I directed them in battle, as was my role,” the Captain answered smoothly, eyes hard and cold as river stones. “I never encountered discipline issues with my crew.”

“Apparently this one didn’t absorb the lessons!” He rounded on Inko, though she refused to allow herself to shrink back. “Abandoning your post, acting without your commanding officer’s approval, breaking”–

“All things which resulted in a win, a captured Count, and the survival of our best strategist,” Magbaredge interrupted smoothly. “Amifumi has acted in ways deserving of commendation, not reprimand.”

The Colonel gritted his teeth. “But Amifumi is not under your command, is she?”

“The Deucalion may not have been a central part of this battle, but its soldiers are mine even on temporary reassignment. I expect a degree of self-sufficiency from my soldiers; in the blackness and chaos of a satellite belt battlefield, it is simply not possible for me, as commander, to direct all of them. Amifumi acted as such here– according to her training. I am proud of her feats today. As should you be.”

“But orders”–

“A victory is a victory. Amifumi did what she was trained to do, and did it very well. I expect you to respect that.”

The Colonel stiffened. “Respect? Captain Magbaredge, you lack it yourself and yet you dare demand it of me?”

The captain folded her hands behind her back, maintaining eye contact unflinchingly. “Yes. I do.”

With a menacing step forward, the Colonel growled, “May I remind you, insolent upstart, that you are beneath me? I could have you stripped of rank and discharged in hours.”

“May I remind you,” she retorted smoothly, “that the Deucalion and its soldiers– and captain– are not under your jurisdiction? Such a cross-division reprimand requires a full investigation. The situation will have to be explained fully, and testimony from witnesses must be considered. Are you willing to go through with such, Colonel?”

The man paled. “Do not think I will forget this,” he threatened before turning on his heel and stalking away.

Inko did her best to pick her jaw up off the floor. “Captain! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to cause trouble– but that was amazing!”

“It was nothing. I mean that. You can’t let them step on you just because they like the feel of your face under their boot heel. You have to kick back. Hard.”

“Captain!”

Inko and Magbaredge both turned to the source of the call. “Yes, Mizusaki?” the Captain said, sounding unruffled by her C.O.’s sudden entrance. Inko blinked.

“Your report on the battle needs to be filed. The best timeframe for recalling details is less than twelve hours. Therefore you should make the report soon, while your memory of the battle is still fresh.”

Magbaredge laughed. “Have I ever told you why you can’t get a date?”

“I believe you have, Captain,” Mizusaki responded, an upward tilt to the corners of her mouth.

“Well then I won’t waste any more of that precious memory time telling you.” Darzana smiled.

Inko looked back and forth between the two women, mystified by the peculiarly warm cast to Mizusaki’s usually reserved expression, the catlike satisfied curl of the Captain’s mouth.

“Amifumi, don’t you also have a report to file?”

Inko snapped a salute. “Y-yes ma’am! I’ll get right to it!”

“Good. But make sure to take care of yourself, too. You fought hard, long, and well today. You have earned a rest.”

“Will do Captain!”

Darzana smiled. “At ease. Life is throwing curves at you right now. You have more important things to deal with than military formalities. Take the time you need.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I sure will!”

Inko stood there and watched as the two women walked away, close enough that their arms brushed with every step.

 

≠≠≠

 

_8 November 2017_

 

Inaho slowly, part-by-part, became aware. The first thing was light: light above him. Second: his own weight, against a surface that gave slightly when he shifted. Third: beeping, regular and familiar as his own heartbeat– because it was his own heartbeat.

It was a setting he knew well. Well enough that, for a distant disconnected second, the last two years of his life became a blurry coma dream, as if he might look over to his left and see Yuki there, asleep on a chair, sling on her arm and blanket slipping off her lap.

Then, he blinked. The world slid back into place. He turned his head to the left anyway. Yuki was indeed there, asleep.

But as he watched, she stirred. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she turned to look at him– and her face lit up.

“Nao! Oh you’re okay, you’re awake! How’re you feeling?”

He opened his mouth, but his voice made no sound when he tried to speak. He swallowed, noticing the dryness of his throat for the first time, and attempted again. “Ah.”

…That was probably insufficient. Yuki would worry if he left it at that, even if placing words in order was unusually difficult at the moment.

“Feeling… fine.”

She let out a shaky laugh. “Okay, good to hear! I mean, I know some lacerations and a broken wrist are nothing life threatening, but a big sister can’t help but worry, after all!”

Broken wrist? He glanced down– ah yes. His right hand and lower arm were encased in a cast. He stretched his fingers, examining the range of motion. Which was abysmal, unsurprisingly.

“Don’t mess with it too much!” She admonished, darting fleeting touches on his arm and face before pulling back, fussing with the sheets and pulling them up over his body.

“Yuki.” His gaze drifted to the wall, and he blinked heavily. There was a question, one he wanted the answer to… ah, that was it. “how long have I been unconscious?”

“Not long. A day and a half, give or take… and some of that they kept you under on purpose, to keep you from moving around too much.”

“What… happened to the Count?”

Yuki frowned. “Captured. I don’t know where they took him. His kat was useless after Inko did whatever it was.”

“Destabilized the containment of the space time distortion,” he corrected absently, focusing on a crack in the ceiling as his thoughts assembled.

Yuki showed no major signs of emotional distress, so it was probably safe to assume that everyone they knew was still alive. In that case…

“Yuki, when do non-family visiting hours begin?”

“Oh!” Her eyes widened, but she smiled. “Soon. Later today, in fact!”

“Thank you.” Inaho allowed his body to slump back into the pillows, relaxed.

More people in the room would make it a bit warmer. That would be very pleasant.

 

≠≠≠

 

_11 November 2017_

 

Inaho squinted at his tablet screen– which, he reminded himself, he would have to hide before Yuki came to check on him again, or it would quickly be confiscated.

It may have been risky, putting this much strain on himself while he was still recovering. But it was necessary. This could not wait.

Dr. Yagarai had visited not long after Inaho had awoken. On the surface, to examine his physical condition as his primary physician. However, the doctor had had more than that to tell.

“The blood sample you gave me contains unsafely elevated blood lead levels,” Yagarai had whispered as he leaned close to examine Inaho’s working eye. “There is also a slight iron deficiency, but the lead levels are far more concerning.”

Inaho had merely nodded silently in response. But his mind had whirled into action the second the words passed Dr. Yagarai’s lips. He would have to find some way of thanking the doctor. For now, though, priority remained on Slaine’s wellbeing.

The symptoms of lead poisoning where well in line with Slaine’s condition over the past months: aggression, mood swings, poor sleep, fatigue, even the anemia… the list went on.

Slaine, slowly being poisoned as he had watched, unknowing.

His chest clenched strangely.

The chances of this being accidental were very small. None of the guards or other staff– some of whom stayed at the facility days or weeks at a time– had shown similar symptoms as they should if there was contamination in the food or water supply.

Still, that left far too many options. One possibility: The UFE was intentionally, slowly killing Slaine Troyard, likely in the hopes of giving the appearance of an accidental death. Yet, it could also be a cook with a grudge. Or a guard under orders to remove the inconveniently-alive scapegoat who was keeping the delicate anchor point of the peace unstable. Perhaps someone, somewhere along the chain, simply hated Slaine and wanted him dead.

Either way, he should have predicted this. The possibility had crossed his mind, but he hadn’t expected it so soon. He had assumed there would be years between the end of the war and the point where someone would begin considering ridding the Earth of Slaine. The risk, he thought, of upsetting the Empress would stay their hand long enough for him to be prepared.

No. The reason was immaterial, and berating himself was useless; what mattered was stopping this as soon as possible. He would have to get in contact with Dr. Hent, to confirm suspicions. The greatest challenge would be discovering the source of the danger. The second-greatest was finding a way to administer treatment without alerting the poisoner to it.

Inaho scrolled further down on his tablet, eye darting back and forth. That was the immediate measure. The long-term one lay here, in front of his eye. He was already beginning to see the dots, the connections sketching in between, but the circumstances would have to be right. Otherwise, the whole plan would fall apart.

A waiting game, then. That was fine with Inaho. He would be as patient as necessary, here, to get what he wanted.

Save Slaine Troyard.

Save this strange, inscrutable, fascinating person.

Inaho stilled at the realization. It was more than just Seylum’s wish now. He did not see an enemy there, across the table. He did not see a duty to fulfill Seylum’s last request of him. He saw… someone. Someone who he would like to get to know, if that were possible at this point.

The insight was interesting. But irrelevant. The task before him remained unchanged.

His eye scanned up and down the pages and pages of documents. In there, buried among language and obfuscation, lay the key.

 

≠≠≠

 

_25 November 2017_

 

Asseylum blinked the sleep from her eyes, hand searching for the shrilling communicator on the bedside table.

Klancain’s arm, thrown languidly over her waist, pulled her back towards his chest. “Mmm let it be, darling. Whatever it is, it can wait until morning. You need your sleep.”

“No,” she mumbled hazily, brushing hair back from her face so she could see the screen properly. “If this line is being used, the matter is important. The time matters not; if my people need me, there I must be.”

He nuzzled the small of her back, breath warm against her skin. “My lady. So dedicated.”

She let her eyes flutter closed for a brief moment, allowing herself to savor the contact, before focusing on the message once more. The words swam faintly, slowly falling into a pattern, a pattern that said–

Asseylum bolted upright, the warmth of comfortable sleepiness gone as swiftly as a doused fire. “My robe, where is my robe?” she fretted, frantic hands searching in the darkness for her clothes.

“Darling,” and Klancain’s voice was worried now, his swift perceptiveness immediately catching her panic, “What’s wrong?”

“This is awful! What we had hoped– it’s gone, lost, I don’t know what I can do or how to fix this”–

Klancain’s hand came down to rest softly on her arm. “Stay calm. Remember, we are in this together. I can help you. My clan can help you. So: what is amiss?”

Asseylum took a shaky, grounding breath. “Count Morgaine,” she began, “has officially declared her secession from the Versian Empire.” She bit her lip hard enough to taste the coppery tang of blood.

Klancain went very still. Then, soft and heavy, he breathed, “Oh.” Nothing more. Nothing less.

In less than ten minutes, they both were dressed– each other’s helping hands fastening buttons, smoothing skirts, neatening sleep-mussed hair.

“Why would Morgaine do this?” Asseylum murmured as they walked. “What is there to gain?”

“Power,” Klancain said grimly.

“But our most recently offered terms of surrender were very generous”–

“To those such as the Count, any surrender is insufferable.” Then, he blushed. “Pardon the interruption, my lady.”

She waved it away. “No matter. I need your knowledge of such things. I… am too ignorant of them.”

“I am glad to be of value to you, Your Majesty.” Klancain’s brow furrowed. “In truth, we have known this would happen. We have known for quite a while. Even so, it is a turn of events with concerning consequences.”

Asseylum sighed. “I will send negotiators. Again.”

“We know Morgaine will not listen to them.”

“Do you expect me to plunge Vers into another war, then? Against itself this time, no less!”

“I understand. But how long can we wait before we take action against her? Her forces grow daily as she wins supporters to her side.”

Asseylum worried her already raw lip. “Even so, they are still little more than a splinter state up in the ice mines. Vers’ might greatly outclasses theirs. There is no need to bring excessive force into this matter.”

“That may be true for the moment– but what of the future?”

“I will not have Versians killing Versians. I refuse to put the people of Vers against one another. We struggle already, as it stands. If we begin to tear at ourselves from the inside, Vers shall die– Earth’s resources or no.”

Klancain nodded. “What you say is true. Yet, I still fear the consequences of leaving Count Morgaine unfettered.”

“I will accept those consequences,” Asseylum said firmly.

 

≠≠≠

 

Slaine’s eyes widened as soon as Inaho walked into the room. Then narrowed.

“What happened to your wrist?”

Kaizuka glanced down to the table. Blatant avoidance. “Nothing much.”

“You disappear for weeks, come back wearing a cast, and expect me to believe that it was nothing.” Apparently, Kaizuka thought that he was still sick enough to not notice that the man had been gone for weeks, without explanation, and returned injured. Unbelievable.

“It doesn’t involve you. Regardless, I am not allowed to share such information with you.”

Slaine sighed, slumping back in his chair. “Of course. So then, why back now? Bored without another one-sided chess match?”

“I also wish to reaffirm your condition. The medical reports have indicated improvement.”

Slaine looked at Kaizuka flatly, barely restraining from rolling his eyes. “Good to know. Thank you so much for telling me. I was on the edge of my seat.”

Now, Kaizuka was staring at him. Intently enough that a slow trail of discomfort slithered down his spine.

“So, what do you want?” Slaine snapped, shifting in his chair sharply enough to make it squeak in protest.

“Nothing, really.” Then, without explaining further, Kaizuka moved to reach down beside his chair with his uninjured arm.

Slaine craned his neck, heartbeat speeding up but face carefully neutral. Kaizuka was rummaging in a bag next to his seat. A bag that Slaine really should have noticed before Kaizuka actually brought it to his attention. Had the cast really distracted him that much?

What Kaizuka pulled out of the bag confused him almost as much as the initial movement had. An insulated container. And… utensils? “Kaizuka. What is this?”

The man blinked. “Food.” Then, after a pause: “For you.”

Slaine gaped, wide-eyed, fingers curling white-knuckled around the table edge. Words jumbled together in his brain, jamming before they could reach his tongue. Before he could sort through them, one slipped through.

“Why?”

Inaho looked at him, expression unchanging. “So you can receive improved and varied nutrition. The food provided here clearly does not appeal to you.”

Through the haze, Slaine saw something odd about the set of Kaizuka’s jaw. Yet, he couldn’t think about that right now; couldn’t think about anything right now. He could only stare, at the food on the table or at Kaizuka.

_This can’t be real. Is this a trick? What is he trying to do?_

The food sat there. Kaizuka sat there.

Slaine’s pulse hammered in his ears.

The utensils were a pair of chopsticks, and a knife and fork. Why both?

“What are you referring to?”

Inaho’s voice shattered Slaine’s focus. Had he said that out loud?

“Yes. You did. And you were asking about…?”

“Um.” Slaine cleared his throat. “Chopsticks. And the knife and fork. Why both?”

Inaho folded his hands on the table. “I did not know if you were able to use chopsticks. So I took the appropriate precautions.” He did not seem phased by Slaine’s continued staring.

Abruptly, Slaine realized that he was clutching the fabric of his shirt in a tight fist, the hard edges of his father’s pendant digging into his hand. He immediately forced his fingers to relax and dropped his hand back to his side, examining Kaizuka for any signs of a reaction.

There were none.

Warily, eyes darting between Kaizuka and the food, Slaine reached across the table. He yanked the food to him, joints stiff and jolting with tension.

Kaizuka didn’t move.

Reluctantly, Slaine moved his gaze to the food. “I know how to use chopsticks perfectly well, thank you!” he snapped, avoiding looking up. Perhaps his grip on them was a bit clumsy, after so many years– but that wasn’t a problem!

Then the smell hit him. Rich and savory, curling through the air and lighting up his senses like a firework. He inhaled, letting it roll over him

It was an omelet. Neat thin slices laid out in a line, all a pleasant yellow-white color bright as a sunny day. They were so soft-looking, so fluffy.

He stilled his shaking hands on the chopstick, and lifted the first slice to his lips.

Flavor, exploding on his tongue, shooting through his nerves and making his eyes water. How long had it been, how many years, since he had tasted something like this? He blinked rapidly as he chewed, fighting back the burning in his eyes. The seasoning was far stronger than any he remembered tasting on a dish like this, but it didn’t matter.

He swallowed. “Who made this?” If it was the prison cook, then Kaizuka must possess remarkable powers of intimidation to make them produce something of this quality–

“Me.”

Slaine froze, a bite suspended halfway between the dish and his mouth. “…you?”

“Yes.”

 _He… made this? For me?_ Slaine swallowed again, throat strangely thick and tight. “Oh,” he choked out. He turned his face away, letting his unkempt fall of hair cover his eyes and cursing the damn dampness in them. “It’s… seasoned very heavily.”

“My apologies.”

Slaine didn’t speak again. Couldn’t. Inaho did not disrupt the silence, instead watching with his hands still serenely folded as the chopsticks clinked against the dish.

The container was completely empty when Kaizuka placed it back in his bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok I just gotta note that Inaho did something very risky and reckless in this chapter that I do not approve of and do not think is a good idea. It won't be clear until future updates, but when you read it you'll see why I have… reservations about what he decided to do.
> 
> Again, sorry for long delay. High aspirations aside, turns out I could not update quickly– in fact, the beginning of my summer has been far busier than even my semester was :(  
> Things are settling down now, though! I know how easy it is to lose interest in a fic during a hiatus. So, many, many thanks to everyone still interested and reading this, and to new readers stumbling across it! Your comments, kudos, and hits mean a lot, and help me keep with this fic.
> 
> Speaking of keeping with… I do not intend to drop this fic. Ever. But it is a long one, so there is quite a lot still to come. Part of why I want to update faster (other than for readers' benefit) is so that I can cover enough ground to keep this fic from running for literal years :'D. I can say this, though– the end of Part 1 approaches!


	11. 1.11 | where did we lose our way?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I need you to”– I’m doing this, I’m really doing this, Lemrina thought wildly– “help me get to Morgaine.”_

* * *

 

_Hypocrite, reader, my double, my brother_

_Your daddy really took it out of you…_

 

* * *

 

_27 November 2017_

 

“So the little doll-Empress has still done nothing?”

Valkyr nodded her head once, sharply. “Yes, my Lady.”

“I have committed an act of direct treason, and all she does for two days is issue a statement pleading for me to reconsider?” Helene laughed. “This is not even a game any longer. A game requires at least two players. Clearly our little Empress doesn’t want to play!” She laced her fingers together. “Not that it matters. Soon, she will have no choice. Are all of our agents placed?”

“Yes. Within the capital and the palace, laying out a network of your control. Supplies can be transported to secure locations where they can be accessed quickly for an attack on the royal palace. However, this process will take”– Valkyr adjusted her glasses, glancing down at the document before her– “Several months. More importantly, the forces needed to execute this plan will not be acquired for nine to ten months. The royalists still outmatch us vastly. In resources, in arsenal, in army size, and in… access to aldnoah.”

Helene’s lips drew into a thin line. “Aldnoah access. Have our researchers made _any_ progress?”

“No, my lady. They can’t understand Dr. Troyard’s research.”

“What? To understand it is their _job_. If they can not, why are they wasting my time?”

“They are trying. They say it is like the research is… missing something. For example”– she cleared her throat, flipped through her papers, and read– “they know that some kind of bodily-fluid bourn vector carries the activation factor. But they do not know what, or why activation factor is not transferred via blood exposure alone. They do know it is of considerably miniscule scale, since the blood sample filtering data shows no differences from blood lacking factors. Whatever it is, it is the size of a virus or smaller. But that is all they have.”

Helene slammed a hand down on the desk. “Damn! Can I not depend on them for _anything_?” She clicked her tongue. “Fine then. Tell them to continue. Also tell them that for their own sakes they had best place helpful results on my desk soon. Very soon.”

“They have said these things cannot be rushed.”

Helene snorted. “I shall rush them if I wish. This rebellion has already begun. I need Aldnoah, and I need it now. The hunger of the mob does not wait.”

 

≠≠≠

 

_28 November 2017_

Someone was laughing. The sun was shining, bright and lovely. A real sun. And green, green grass, waving softly in a gentle breeze.

_Momma! Watch me!_

The laughter of children, running, yelling, living. Young, happy, free. The shade of a tree, dappled over the ground in a soft play of light and shadow. Her back against the trunk. It was a solid tree, broad and smooth-barked with age. She ran her fingers over a bumpy root–

And her hand sank into stony churned mud, the coppery tang of blood filling her nose. Someone screamed. An explosion tore through a wall of dirt next to her, knocking her into the mud and leaving her ears ringing. She struggled to her feet–

In a calf-high drift of snow. It fell in flurries, thick and fast, white against grey. The world was muted to simple shapes. Smooth round curves, bumps, jagged edges of wreckage jutting from the serene white surface–

Of the marble tiles in the throne room of the Vers Empire. She sat on the high dias, staring down coldly at the man dragged bodily before her. Forced to his knees, he looked up, dark hair mussed and falling messily into his face, half-concealing his wine-red eye, the dark eye patch that covered the other.

… and Asseylum was blinking awake, Klancain’s voice curving around her name. He was shaking her shoulder softly. “’s… it’s fine, I’m wide awake now,” she said blearily, and annoyed herself by immediately disproving that via a long yawn. The images from that dream rattled distractingly, but she pushed them away. Dreams were only dreams.

Right now, the more pressing concern was…

“Oh!” she cried, hands flying to her mouth. “The documents! I was supposed to read them for the meeting with the Orbital Knights today, and instead I fell asleep”–

Klancain kissed the top of her head softly. “It’s alright, dear. You still have time. And if you fell asleep that easily, you needed it. I’ll sit here with you, to help you stay awake. I know half of what is in these anyway, so I can tell you the key elements.”

“I should know them myself,” she objected, but it was weak against Klancain’s steady arm around her shoulders. She leaned back against his chest.

“You’ll have time to learn it all later. And I’ll be there to assist you. For now, you only need to remember the basics. Current alliances, past ones, blood feuds, at-odds factions. The details can wait until you have the time and energy. For now, do what you can.”

“You’re right. Thank you.” Asseylum rubbed the sleep from her eyes and answered his smile with one of her own.

“My clan is mobilizing. If that upstart Morgaine attempts to even posture at attacking, we shall be the first to strike for you. You have them. And you have me.”

She laid her hand over his on the desk, lacing their fingers together. “Yes. If nothing else, I have you. Now,” she shook herself a little, and tapped the desk screen to summon the documents she had been attempting to read before, “Shall we continue?”

 

≠≠≠

 

It was inaccurate to call this a meeting room, Inaho thought. A meeting room implied a civil gathering conducted in calm tones. This UFE meeting could only be conducted in a place for people to yell at each other as loudly and as often as possible. “Shouting room” would be a better name for that.

“Vers has been a hotbed of infighting and aggression since its foundation. This is nothing different.”

“If Mars fights itself, the attention is off of us! If anything, we should be encouraging this secession effort.”

“Vers is an independent entity. It should deal with its own problems on its own, without our unwelcome interference.”

Inaho listened to all of this, silently, hands folded in his lap as he stared into space.

“Kaizuka. Share your thoughts. What is your analysis of this situation?”

Inaho blinked. “I do not have enough information to make a judgment. It has been three days. We do not know Morgaine’s military capacity or the size of her support base on Vers. We do not know the scale of the threat.” Heads were nodding in the meeting hall. “However,” he went on, and some of the heads paused, “this can’t be ignored.”

“Why not? It’s none of our business!”

Inaho turned his eye to the woman who had spoken. “The first war was instigated by the UFE’s refusal to respond to problems on Vers. Vers has the technology to make a problem there swiftly become a problem here.”

“Why would they? This is an internal conflict. The last one was external, between planets. What does Earth have to fear now? A war that weakens Vers would be a good thing, not a bad one.”

Inaho glanced down at his tablet to check the time. There were two choices of dishes he was thinking of preparing. But if he didn’t make dinner before Yuki did, it would be instant noodles and raw vegetables. “Wars drain resources. They don’t have the resources to waste. A civil war on Vers will lead to an attack on Earth.”

“We can’t know that for sure!” someone else shouted. “And we can’t know that supplying Vers will lead to more stability! For all we know it will make the situation worse!”

Someone else began shouting back. Another joined in, possibly trying to calm the shouting or perhaps trying to be heard over both. In seconds the room was filled with the roar of debate once more.

Inaho sighed. Instant noodles did have their merits, after all.

 

≠≠≠

 

_30 November 2017_

 

The embroidery needle hit the ground with a tiny _ting_. Lemrina’s hands bunched in the material of her skirt, the only outlet she allowed her tightly-contained frustration.

Or that was what it looked like, she hoped.

She had spent weeks, months, waiting for her chance. Now, at last, she was alone with the one maid she needed to talk to. The one she had been watching. Watching oh so closely.

Some people were terrible at keeping secrets from those they didn’t know were looking.

For once in her life, it made Lemrina glad to go unnoticed.

“I’m sorry, can you pick that up for me? I… can’t reach it myself.”

The maid’s lips thinned. But whatever irritation she felt, she didn’t let it show in her voice. “Certainly, my lady.” She bent down, searching for the needle on the floor. Lemrina leaned over, making a show of reaching to point to the needle–

And seized the maid’s wrist. Whispered, low and fast, into the maid’s ear– “I know what you’re doing. I saw you salute Morgaine’s speech. I heard what you said about the Empress. I know you’re a supporter of Morgaine.”

The mad had gone still. “My lady, I have no knowledge of what you speak.”

“Don’t play dumb. Think my sweet sister would take your word over mine? I could get you jailed for treason in half a heartbeat.”

The maid’s eyes were wide. “Milady, please”–

“If you don’t want me to turn you in as a traitor, you need to do something for me.”

“What?” The maid dropped honorifics, ceremony forgotten.

“I need you to”– _I’m doing this, I’m really doing this,_ Lemrina thought wildly– “help me get to Morgaine.”

“Why that? Why not just ask me to spy?”

“Because,” and at this Lemrina smiled, giddiness crackling through her, “because I’m going to join her. She needs Aldnoah if she’s going to fight my sister. I can give it to her.” I’ll give her anything to destroy those lies they buried Slaine with. Anything.

“I’ll do what I can, my lady,” the maid murmured, then held up the needle and said with false brightness “Oh! Here it is, my lady!”

“Many thanks,” Lemrina said sweetly. “You’re so helpful and nice to me! I should ask my dear sister to promote you to head of my staff!”

The maid’s eyes widened slightly. “I would be honored, your highness.”

Head of staff. In charge of selecting those who served and attended her every day. A perfect opportunity to surround her with Count Morgaine’s sympathizers.

Lemrina smiled. “The pleasure is all mine.” And she meant that, with every fibre of her being.

 

≠≠≠

 

_1 December 2017_

 

Harklight opened his eyes to the steady tone of his alarm. Closed them.

The first of December.

Soon, it would be one year since the death of his Lord. One long, terrible year.

He had not given up Lord Slaine’s fight. Even if it meant living in hiding, sneaking past security checks in hidden compartments on trains, joining forces with that copper-haired vulture of a Count.

He had taken Morgaine’s measure. He knew what she wanted; it was what all counts wanted. Power. She cared not a wit for the dreams of equality and justice Slaine had fought and died to bring into being.

But she had charisma. Influence. Resources. Everything the ragtag network he had gathered from the ashes of Earthspace lacked. It may be a devil’s bargain to ally with her, but Harklight would do what was necessary.

 _Slaine would have led us out of this with ease and grace_ , Harklight thought, a familiar ache awakening in his chest. Sometimes he couldn’t stop himself from wondering why, that day almost a year ago now, Slaine had died and he had lived. Why could it not have been him instead? He knew Slaine would have been horrified at that thought, and it made him ashamed to even think it.

But think it he did. Because Slaine was gone now. And nothing could ever change that. So Harklight must carry on his cause in his stead. Champion the weak, the abused, the exploited people of Vers. Harklight’s family and friends, those he had grown up alongside, scraping and struggling, living in fear of the system failure or ration shortage that could kill them in the flicker of an instant.

So he would fight alongside the vulture Morgaine, destroy the failed and corrupt royal line, and rebuild Vers from the rubble into the shape it always should have taken. He would do his best to preserve the Princess that his Lord had loved so dearly, but her flittering foolish hands would bear no power. Lemrina, if she was still alive, could finally take her rightful spot as a ruler who understood the suffering of the Versian people. And Morgaine…

Harklight would find some way to dispose of her. Counts were capricious and cruel and selfish; her downfall would likely be as easy to orchestrate as Marylcian’s. She was, through and through, a creature of the system that ground the lower classes under the brutal heel of the powerful. Harklight would not waste a second on hesitation to strike her down, when the time came.

He buttoned up his uniform with swift, efficient movements– not the uniform that Slaine had given him, as much as it made him ache. Merely a miner’s suit. It would have to do for now. He refused to present anything other than a perfect, unruffled front to Count Morgaine. He would not give her a crack to pry open, to crumble all he had done to continue Slaine’s fight.

“I shall make you proud, Milord Slaine,” Harklight said to the still air. As his footsteps rang in the metal hallway, he added, in the silence of his own head: _‘And someday, we will meet again.’_

 

≠≠≠

 

_2 December 2017_

 

Inaho untied his apron strings, satisfied. Cooking often left him feeling satisfied: a set procedure, followed closely, sometimes altered as appropriate, yielding nourishing and pleasurable results. It was all very gratifying.

Cooking for Slaine provided an extra challenge. Concealing the taste of the chelating agents was not difficult, but keeping the concealment subtle was harder.

The dosage was mostly guesswork on his part. It did seem to be working, despite that: Slaine had seemed livelier, more aware and responsive, recently.

It was not without risks. Inaho knew that. He had weighed them carefully. Until the source of the lead contamination was found, he would simply have to continue on this course of action.

The prison was as bleak as always. Security had gotten lax over the past months, and the guards held no interest in Inaho or the food he carried. It was not possible to tell if they simply did not care, or if they knew from experience that it was safe. Either way, it was to Inaho’s advantage. He would take it.

Slaine’s eyes were bright, alert, intent on him as he entered the room. Were the lines of his face less sharp? Inaho couldn’t tell, didn’t want to assume. It was easy to see what you wanted to see.

He set out the food, and settled into his chair as Slaine began. He would rather not hover as Slaine ate. Yet, as things were, he had no other option: these brought-in meals were not strictly approved. Getting them to Slaine any other time would need approval of the Board.

Doubtless, if they knew they would find some security technicality to ban bringing in food.

So for now, what they didn’t know would not trouble them.

A soft _tink_ rang in the still air, and Inaho glanced up. Slaine was done, and had stacked the bowls and utensils with neat efficiency. His hands were spread flat on the table. He stared down at them, biting his lip, brows drawn together, shoulders tense. Then, he spoke.

“Why are making these for me?”

Inaho blinked. “I told you before, I”–

“No, I mean… you could have made flavorless, simple, easy stuff, but instead you bring all these complicated meals that must take hours to prepare, with costly ingredients… So, why?”

“Ah.” Inaho stared for a second, considering. “I’m testing out new dishes. I want to expand my cooking abilities, but I need an unbiased taste-tester so I know if it’s working.” It was a true explanation, if not the only one.

Slaine relaxed, even if it was only incrementally, at that. “The only guinea pig whose word you can trust is your imprisoned enemy?”

“Former enemy,” Inaho corrected, “and yes. I expect you to be very forthright about any problems with my cooking.” He shrugged a shoulder. “And my sister loves anything that doesn’t taste like mud. I can’t depend on her to give an honest, accurate assessment.”

Slaine arched one pale, elegant eyebrow. “That’s pretty cold. Such harsh words about your own sister.”

“It’s the truth,” Inaho insisted.

“Truth won’t get you many friends, I warn you,” Slaine said, expression wry.

“Truth is more important than shallow alliances based on lies.”

Slaine regarded him, looking tired. “Wouldn’t that be a funny thing. If that happened.”

“Your tone indicates otherwise,” Inaho pointed out.

Slaine leaned forward in his chair again, eyes narrowing. “Don’t. Play. Word games. With. Me. Kaizuka. I won’t ask you again.”

“I don’t intend to.”

“Really.” Slaine’s tone was flat. “Fine then. Do what you want.” He paused for a moment, a muscle in his jaw working. “The food was… fine.”

Inaho bowed his head towards Slaine. “Thank you. Remember to eat well and exercise. I want to see your condition improve.”

“Oh yes,” Slaine said, “wouldn’t want to grow idle, locked up in a cell large enough that it actually takes me six steps to cross it!”

“It is winter in this area of the globe right now. Going outside is unwise. Once better weather arrives you’ll be able to go out more.”

Slaine stared at him. “You mean it, don’t you. You really mean it.” The breath left him in a incredulous huff. “I can’t believe you.”

“I don’t tend to say things I don’t mean.”

Slaine sighed. “Just leave. Leave now, before I get angry again. I don’t have the energy to waste on it. You found out what you wanted to know. You don’t need to stay any longer.”

Inaho nodded, and complied without further argument.

 

≠≠≠

 

Slaine pressed his face into the pillow. Why, why, _why_ were his eyes burning and prickling yet again?

 _Plink_. A drop fell from the bathroom faucet again. An old, dingy thing, clearly from before the retrofitting to turn this place into a prison. Perhaps replacing it had been too expensive for the UFE. Slaine didn’t care.

He rolled over to his other side, hands curling into fists. Kaizuka had the dubious honor of being the most ungodly infuriating person Slaine had ever met. And Slaine had met quite a few infuriating people. Yet Kaizuka was the **_most_** infuriating, because–

Because he was so hard to hate. Supercilious Versian counts, vindictive commanders, cruel teachers; despising them was effortless. Yet, no matter how Slaine tried to hate him, Kaizuka kept doing all these little needling things that poked holes in Slaine’s resolve as though it were nothing more than tissue paper.

Slaine gritted his teeth. Perhaps if he had still been a gullible, wide-eyed twelve-year-old, he would have complained that it wasn’t _fair_. But that child had died long ago. He was older now. Scarred, jaded, broken.

A flicker of uncertainty filled him. How old was he? He thought, perhaps, almost twenty… but he couldn’t know for sure. Was his birthday approaching? Had it already passed? What month of the year was it, even? Kaizuka had mentioned it was winter. It had been biting cold when he was brought here, though there had been no snow on what little bit of the ground he had been allowed to see. Had he been here a year, then?

A year. A year inside these cold, grey walls. Without warning, a bitter laugh bubbled up in his throat. He shouldn’t have survived it. But he had one talent, a talent he had never asked for, the talent of clinging on to life past all desire and reason. Why did he even do this?

He thought of gold hair, a kind smile. The memories were faded and discolored like old photographs, worn thin from age, and the uncountable number of times he had clung to them.

Unbidden, other, fresher images rose in their place. Cool raindrops on his skin. Arms catching him as he staggered and fell. A dish of fresh, home-made food sitting under the stark visiting room lights.

Slaine rolled onto his back, and finally let the tears well out of his eyes and run freely down his cheeks.

What a pathetic specimen he made.

 

 

≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for over 200 kudos! and almost 4,000 hits! And for your continued comments and bookmarks and everything! I really couldn't do this without all you az fans still hanging in there, so I deeply appreciate all of you and everything you do. 
> 
> Sorry once again for the delay on this– I could cite any number of reasons, but "not working on it" and "not having inspiration" are the main two. Not that it matters haha. Here's the chapter at last!
> 
> I'm contemplating making the next chapter one huge combo chapter, since I'd love to see part 1 come to a close by chapters 13 or 14! In fact, I'd love to see it come to a close before my fall semester starts… we'll see about that. So, possibly, if I get the inspiration and time, there might be several updates in the month of August!
> 
> Chapter title and opening quote are both from "Speaking in Tongues" by Arcade Fire.


	12. 1.12 | Waiting 'Til The Beat Comes Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Wish Troyard a Merry fucking Christmas for me.”_

_15 December 2017_

 

Helene ran a hand through her hair. It was mussed and wild from her restlessness, falling in fiery waves over her shoulders. With no device to dry it otherwise, it had dried naturally, and the curls wound themselves into enthusiastic ringlets.

Aldnoah. It all came back to Aldnoah!

It had set Vers apart from the Terrans, made them the great race they were now.

It was no God, and it could be controlled. Supposedly.

That foolish girl who sat on the royal throne like a doll’s chair, she had it. So why, why did it continue to deny itself to Helene?

She laughed bitterly. She had nothing, that was why. Some musty research papers from years ago. The aldnoah drives that powered the ice mines and their machinery. Her Lyssomanes, Valkyr’s Hesperia. But no activation factor. No bearer of it, one who could provide the crucial materials for the tests needed. Only rights holders, who merely borrowed the light of aldnoah for a time. Like the counts who had come to her side. Like herself.

Helene turned to stare at the map displayed on the wall, hissing a breath through her clenched teeth. Her forces were gathered. They could only grow restless, if left to sit and while away the hours and days. Rats, peasants, merchants, Knights, Lords, Counts. She had them all. If she could keep them.

She pivoted sharply back to the desk. Pressing the call button, she said, “Valkyr. Begin mobilization of our fighters and preparations of the transport crafts. In twelve hours, we move out.”

 

_19 December 2017_

 

Kaizuka sat stiffly in his chair. _Should I be worried about myself, that I know him well enough to notice something strange about it?_ Slaine thought tiredly. It didn’t matter. But he knew that much about Kaizuka’s body language. The man slumped, rested, relaxed. He never sat as though he was ready to spring up any second.

“What’s going on with you today?” Slaine tried, eyes narrowed. He knew better than to expect a real answer.

“Nothing,” Kaizuka said, while staring at the wall to his right, hand rising to his eye patch.

Slaine regarded the obvious tells with a weather eye. “Alright, then. Lie to me. I don’t matter.”

There was something _off_ about the way he held himself, the way he moved. Slaine could feel it. It wasn’t right.

Kaizuka still refused to look him in the eye. Slaine could see the way the lines of tension in his shoulders shifted.“If I could tell you, I would.”

The fear rose like a red tide, sick and poisonous, as sudden and inescapable as if it had merely been waiting behind a fragile dam of denial. He stood sharply, one hand clutching desperately at the table edge, the other flying to his pendant. His fingers tightened on the rim of the tabletop, the metal edges biting into his skin. “What is happening? Is she in danger? Are the counts rebelling?”

“I’m not allowed to share information with you.”

“I know.” Slaine closed his eyes. Swallowed. “But, can you– can you tell me one little thing, at least? Is… is she alright?” _I have no right to worry for her, after all I did to her. But I can’t… I can’t bear thinking something might have happened to her._

Inaho hesitated visibly, and Slaine felt his heart turn to stone in his chest.

Then Inaho spoke. “She is alive and in good health.”

Slaine sank back into his chair like a puppet whose strings had been cut. It was no answer, no true answer, but it was more than he had hoped for.

Inaho was staring at him with strange, blank eyes.

Slaine did not answer.

 

_25 December 2017_

 

“Wish it would just fucking snow already, get it over with,” Dr. Hent growled. “It’s cold enough. Everything’s all brown and dead. Needs some snow to cover it up.”

Inaho inclined his head. He didn’t point out that, snow or not, it would still be cold either way. Most people disliked it when he did such things.

“Now I assume,” the doctor murmured, “that you didn’t bring me out here for a constitutional.”

“Correct. I wish to discuss Slaine Troyard’s health.”

Dr. Hent raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What about it?”

“Your observations, as a doctor.”

“Well,” the doctor said in a slow, measured tone, “he’s not dying. Something must be helping him. Perhaps your cooking, if it truly is as good as the legends say?”

The doctor’s smile was joking, but there was an odd edge to it.

“I like to think that my food-preparation skills have indeed helped here,” Inaho replied carefully.

“Oh? Well, I suppose a few good square meals can work wonders. The right nutrients in the right proportions… magic.”

“Yes.” Inaho stared up at the bare tree branches. This kind of double-talk tasted odd on his tongue, unnatural and unfamiliar.

“Well,” the doctor said, “other than not dying, his condition does seem to be improving– noted weight gain, improved appetite, all that kind of thing. In fact”– the doctor paused, scratching their chin with a gnarled finger– “I think, if I recall correctly, that he grew a centimeter or two as of last physical. You’d think he’d be too old for that, at that age– what is he, nineteen? Twenty?”

Inaho compared the date in Troyard’s file to the current calendar day. “Nineteen years and eleven months.”

“Must be a late bloomer, then. Shit,” the doctor muttered, digging deep into a pocket and yanking out a cigarette with lighter to match. “What the fuck are they doing to kids these days. Teenagers should be screwing around getting into trouble, doing the sorts of stupid things that you tell your friends about when you get older because it’s funny that you ever thought they were good ideas…” Dr. Hent took a long draw from the lit cigarette.

“War doesn’t leave time for that,” Inaho said. _And Count Morgaine is taking Vers apart piece by piece, while Seylum values the peace too much to put an end to her._ His hand clenched into a fist.

“I guess so… I guess so.” Dr. Hent hummed thoughtfully. “You celebrate Christmas?”

“No.”

“Ah of course, should have expected that from you. Especially since you’re visiting today. Most who celebrate it would want to spend Christmas with their families.”

Inaho considered it. He and Yuki had never had the time or money– or religious inclination– to celebrate that particular holiday, or any winter holiday. It was merely winter. Most celebrations at that time of year drew their roots from the change of the seasons. Simple.

“I do not feel the need.”

“That is indeed apparent,” the doctor snorted. “Well, I’m done freezing my old bones out here. Lost one leg already, not fond of the idea of losing the other to frostbite. Wish Troyard a Merry fucking Christmas for me.”

Inaho considered it as he followed the doctor inside. He hadn’t prepared anything different or special for today; it simply hadn’t occurred to him. However, Slaine’s birthday was approaching…

 

_11 January 2018_

 

Slaine stared down at the contents of the bag before him.

“Kaizuka. What is this?”

Inaho looked at him blankly. “Giving gifts is a part of birthday celebration.”

“Birthday… what? Is it…” his heart jolted uncomfortably in his chest. “Is it my birthday?”

“You are twenty years old today, yes.”

Slaine slumped back in his chair. “I’m… I’m twenty…”

 _“You’ll make a fine young man, when you are grown. I look forward to seeing that day.”_ Saazbaum’s voice echoed in his memory, and Slaine shut his eyes against the familiar pain that took advantage of his shock to spring fresh and sharp around his heart.

He’d been sixteen, grieving still for the silent Princess in her cage, alone in the unfamiliar world that was Saazbaum’s court, wearing his new knight’s uniform with an awkwardness that he knew betrayed how much he didn’t belong there. Of course, it had been only manipulation, Saazbaum looking to shape Slaine to his purposes and turn him into a useful game piece, but still… those words had comforted him. Made him feel less… alone.

Slaine had repaid that kindness with death. Here he was, the young man Saazbaum had hoped to see. A tyrant. A monster. A murderer.

And Kaizuka had brought him _books_.

Tiredly, he turned his gaze back to Kaizuka. “Why go to the trouble of bringing me something? Wasn’t it difficult to get _anything_ allowed in by security?”

“It was,” Inaho agreed without inflection, “but I felt your birthday should be acknowledged.”

Slaine’s fingers pressed on his pendant, heavy against his chest. _“Why?”_

Inaho blinked. “Why not? Birthdays mark our progressing experience in the world. Basic, but useful.”

An odd urge to laugh rose in Slaine’s chest. “Ah of course! Why not celebrate the worthless life of a dead war criminal?”

“Slaine.” A shiver ran up his spine at the direct use of his name. “Your life is not worthless.”

“What else can it be? Want me to lie to myself? I’m an excellent liar, so it just might work.”

“You are alive. Therefore, your existence has worth.”

The urge to laugh returned, stronger this time, clawing in his throat. Slaine felt his mouth twist. A rictus of a grin spread over his face until it cracked wide and the laugh came pouring out of him like acrid bile.

It sounded alien, as if the voice laughing was simply using his body to produce noises that amused it. The laughs forced their way out of him, shaking his ribcage until he could almost feel his bones rattling together. Everything was blurred behind a sheen of tears. He could feel them running down his face in hot streams. He laughed so hard there was no time to breath between each shriek. His breathing was high and whooping. He was lightheaded, heart pounding like a drum, and he couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop laughing–

His palms were slick and clammy, blood, it had to be blood, he couldn’t breathe. Chairs clattered and he staggered to his feet for a sliver of a second before his knee hit the floor. The laughter didn’t even sound like laughter anymore, someone was screaming over and over and–

There were _hands_ on him _no don’t touch me_ , he struck out wildly, felt something soft-yet-solid give under his fist. The hands vanished. Slaine wrapped his arms around his chest, rocking blindly. Everything was tilting and whirling. A hideous gasping wheeze rose from his throat, laughter clinging to the edges of him still, his mouth dust-dry.

 _Slaine_ a voice said. _Slaine_. _Try to regulate your breathing_.

Slaine pressed a hand over his mouth, maybe that would keep the inhuman sounds in. Tears ran over his fingers. Salt, he could taste salt on his tongue– blood? There was blood on his face, hot and fresh, and it was so hideously funny because Kaizuka was _right there_. Kaizuka was the one who had been shot, but the blood was on Slaine, wasn’t it funny? Blood, blood, get it off, _get it off me_ –

Hands again, pinning his arms to his sides. Kaizuka, blurry and distorted. _Stop, you’re going to hurt yourself_. It made Slaine want to laugh again. Who would care if he hurt himself? She might, but she was millions of kilometers away.

 _Count with me_. An order. He was a good terran dog, he could follow orders. _One. Two. Three. Four_ …

He gasped the words out along with the voice– Kaizuka’s voice, he realized hazily. “… Ten,” he wheezed.

“Breathe. Concentrate on your breathing. One…”

They repeated the cycle several times. Kaizuka’s arms were wrapped around his chest, his throat protested at each hard-won breath, and his face stung with long red fingernail marks from when he had clawed at it. The tear tracks were growing cold on his skin.

“Breathe. Just Breathe.”

And Slaine did breathe. He could breathe, now. Something told him he should shove Inaho away from him– but something else told him that he might fall over if something was not holding him upright.

He didn’t want to fight it. He was so tired. And Inaho was warm.

“Are you alright?”

Slaine swallowed, clearing his dry throat. “Let go of me.”

_No, I’m not alright._

_Help me._

_Get away from me._

_Please don’t let go._

_Stop pretending to be concerned._

_Don’t leave me._

_Stop doing this._

_Please_.

As he hauled himself to his feet on the edge of the table, he ached with the strange absence that clung to him, without the warmth of another human being against his skin.

_2 February 2018_

 

The temperature had finally warmed enough that Inaho judged it suitable for Slaine to go outside again.

Slaine had been quiet for the majority of the past month. Inaho had not asked what had caused the panic episode on his birthday; doing so would likely bring up bad memories to trigger another one. They had returned to the chess games. Slaine had even won the last one with a carefully-laid trap that Inaho had not been able to see among the movements of the board until it had been too late to extract his pieces from it.

Inaho had been surprised by the loss, but he should not have been. He no longer had the analytical engine. Slaine had had no such advantage during the war, and yet performed remarkably. Slaine appeared to work not by strategy and calculation but rather by a strange combination of careful planning and sudden impulse. Somehow, he had understood exactly what Inaho would do, and why. With that knowledge, he won.

Slaine had not seemed happy about the victory, but neither had he been confrontational or violent, so Inaho regarded it as a positive development. Really, it was long in coming. Slaine had been imprisoned here for thirteen months. The two of them had been interacting regularly, and Slaine’s greatest advantage in the war had been his ability to out-manipulate those around him. It had only been a matter of time before Slaine studied Inaho’s patterns enough to use them against him.

A trip outside, however, may improve Slaine’s mood. It was psychologically unhealthy to be confined as he was.

Even going outside was merely an extension of that confinement.

Inaho’s chest tightened. He did not quite _forget_ how much danger this situation held for Slaine– danger both physical and emotional– but sometimes it slipped away from the surface of his thoughts and became mere background static. Strange, to know that action was needed but also that short-term options were all too high-risk to work.

Ironic, that his plans depended on the steadily-progressing conflicts of far-away Vers. Seylum should be willing to help– he would ask her as soon as it was safe to do so.

“The weather has improved. Do you want to go out?”

Across from him, Slaine’s fingers fumbled on the chess piece he had just picked up. It clattered to the board, scattering the pieces it knocked against. “I– yes.” He said nothing more, just stood and followed Inaho.

Inaho watched Slaine carefully on the stairs, as he had before while Slaine was still fragile from the battle with pneumonia. Slaine’s footing seemed secure. A thread of tension worked loose from Inaho’s shoulders.

Inaho stood aside so Slaine could get past him. Slaine froze for a second, staring out the opened door. Then, he stepped forward, movements slow and tense, as though he expected the door to slam shut before him at any second. Inaho heard, faintly, a release of breath when Slaine’s foot passed the threshold.

Slaine ran several steps forward into the open. Then he stopped. He turned in a slow circle on the patchy grass, arms spread and face upturned to the sunlight. As he faced the doorway again, he wore the clearest, most honest smile Inaho could remember seeing on his face. It was– quite pleasant, actually. The light cast his pale hair in glimmers of white-gold and etched the shadows of his long eyelashes over his skin, catching the brilliant-summer-sky blue of his eyes as they opened–

“What are you– is that a smile?” Slaine’s voice cut into Inaho’s reverie, sounding rather more taken-aback than necessary, in his opinion.

“Is it particularly unusual for a person to smile in response to an ideal spring day?”

“No, it’s just that I’ve never seen you– “ Slaine stopped, and sighed wryly. “I know nothing about you, don’t I?”

Something about the resignation in his tone, the heaviness in his eyes, drew a response from Inaho. “I do not possess much information about you either, so it’s fair, at least.”

“Fair?” Slaine laughed. It didn’t sound bitter, or angry, as Inaho had grown used to hearing. “Should it be fair, then?” He seemed… amused, almost.

“I don’t know,” Inaho replied honestly. “Do you want it to be?”

Slaine’s eyes widened. “You’re asking _me_? Why should it matter what _I_ think? No, don’t– don’t answer that.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You like ‘ideal spring days,’ then?”

“Yes. They are pleasantly warm without the burden of summer heat, and with the start of the growing season fresh produce returns to stores.”

“Alright. I…” Slaine looked away, tilting his face up to the sky again. “I love the sky. Storm-cloud-strewn or clear and blue. Evening sunset colors or soft purple dawn. It’s so open and… free.”

Slaine’s expression was strange. Inaho could not properly identify the emotions there– they were too numerous, too quick, to comprehend.

Then, Slaine turned back to him. “So that’s how this works. We exchange information. It’s like a… game, of sorts. Not like I have anything better to do on these visits. Chess doesn’t count, by the way.”

 _Nothing better to do… I shall have to fix that_ , Inaho thought. “I accept,” was all he said.

 

_10 February 2018_

 

Inaho sat down across from Troyard, feeling the man’s eyes track him.

“Back again?” Slaine asked, voice revealing nothing.

“Yes.”

“Any particular reason for disrupting my peace?”

Inaho’s initial instinct was to correct that Slaine’s state over the past year had shown few signs of peacefulness. However, pointing this out would not help matters. Instead, he said, “I agreed to a game.”

Slaine’s eyes narrowed. “Still want to play?”

“I have no reason to withdraw my word.”

“Of course.” Slaine’s lip twitched strangely, almost in a snarl. “You can do whatever you want.” At that, Slaine looked down, then lifted his gaze back to Inaho. “What _do_ you know about me?”

“I know that you are twenty years old. You were born in northern Europe. Your height is one hundred and seventy-eight centimeters. Your weight is fifty-eight point five kilograms. Both as of your last medical check-up. You are the best pilot I’ve ever flown with. You saved Empress Asseylum’s life. You own a heavy silver pendant. You are the only person who has beaten me at chess. You like the sky.”

Slaine blinked. “So. Is that what I look like to you? Is that what you see?”

“I see what I can see.”

“Says the man with one eye,” Slaine snapped.

“My vision is fine, other than my”–

“I didn’t ask.” Slaine crossed his arms. “So, that’s what you know about me?”

“A summary.”

He laughed, a short, derisive sound. “You were right.”

“Right about what?”

“You know nothing about me. Just like I know nothing about you.”

Inaho blinked. “Is that not the purpose of this game? To address that.”

“Do you really think trading little bits of information back and forth will do anything useful?”

“There is a possibility.”

Slaine closed his eyes suddenly, as though he were in pain. “You have too much faith in your plans. Anyway, you could have been asking me questions the whole time I’ve been locked up here. But you’ve never even asked why I don’t need shaving supplies. Isn’t that an obvious question? Aren’t you curious?”

“No,” Inaho said. _Not about that, anyway_. “It is not due to health issues. At this point in time, that is all I need to know. I assume you have your reasons for not needing to shave.” _As I have mine_.

“That’s it then?” Slaine huffed out something like a laugh. But harder. Bitterer. “That’s all? You are an uncommon man, Kaizuka.”

Inaho inclined his head. “I am aware.”

Slaine’s eyebrows shot up. “ _Really. Are you.”_

Ah. Evidently a misstep had been made, somewhere. “I am out of the statistical norm under several parameters.”

“Of course you are,” Slaine spat. “Perfect people aren’t ‘the statistical norm,’ after all.”

“I am not–“

“– perfect. Oh, I know. I’m sure you could go on and list in exacting detail all the things you think are flaws, all the problems you have, every reason why I’m wrong, wrong, wrong–“ Slaine cut off and squeezed his eyelids shut. “Fuck this. Fuck it. I’m sick of re-treading the same ground with you over and over again. This visit is finished.”

And so it was.

_24 February 2018_

 

 _I could tell him about colors_ , Slaine thought. _Which ones I like, and don’t… Or, perhaps… would that time a goose attacked me when I was seven be better?_ His mouth twitched into a humorless smile. _I could tell him about how it felt to have electricity course through my body like lightning in my veins. I could tell him it was his fault._

The echoes of malicious glee that vindictive fantasy brought faded almost as soon as they appeared. He curled his fingers into the rumpled sheets.

It was foolish. Pointless. To savor the little illusory scrap of power he had been given.

Yet, here he was, planning out which little trivial bits of information about himself to give, and which to withhold. The sharpest, cruelest ways to deliver them, to effectively cause the most pain. Crafting petty ways to make Kaizuka squirm.

That was the game, wasn’t it? Pointless. A way to pass the time. Nothing more.

He had an abundance of time to pass.

Slaine rolled over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. Sixty-three cracks… he could have drawn them on a piece of paper now. In exacting detail. Perhaps he should change it up. Memorize a wall, or maybe the floor.

He raised a hand, palm towards the sky. Where the sky would be, if he could see it. Blue veins stood out through his skin. Had it always been this translucent?

His hands. Funny, they were attached to him and yet they felt like a stranger’s. These hands had grasped the cold gunmetal of a pistol. These hands had torn Marylcian’s kataphrakt asunder, exposing soft flesh to the greedy crushing grip of empty space. These hands had pressed up against smooth cold glass, so close yet so far from the woman he had loved.

A shiver ran down his spine. He dropped his hand back to the bed, fingernails digging into his palm. His mind cast about in search of something, anything to take his thoughts away–

Wasn’t Kaizuka supposed to be visiting today?

He almost sighed. It said something about how lonely and isolated he was that Kaizuka was what he seized on to divert his attention from the sickening memories.

Anything was better than remembering those things. Remembering Trillram’s bright blood on the broken pavement. Remembering the look on Cruhteo’s face as the whip cracked down. Remembering the sound of Saazbaum’s voice as he said the last words he would ever speak–

Slaine twisted upright from the bed. The ground was a shock of cold on his bare feet, but he ignored the shoes abandoned next to bed. He pressed his palms against the wall, pushing until the rough texture of the concrete bit into his skin. Dragging his hands down it sent raw jolts of pain through his nerves.

It had never been more of a mercy when the guards arrived to escort him to the little fish tank of a visitation room.

There was another bag. Sitting there on the table. Slaine’s eyes narrowed.

“What do you want this time?”

“You have had a month and a half to read the books I brought before. Keeping you supplied with fresh reading material is more effective at preventing boredom.”

Slaine snorted. It was amusing, in a way, to watch Kaizuka try to help. “You a reader yourself, with all these books ready at hand?”

“These are not my collection of books. I acquired them elsewhere.” Inaho paused, and then went on as though he had realized that he hadn’t answered the question. “But yes. I have read many.”

“Got any favorite authors, then?” Slaine tilted his chair back on two legs.

“No. Don’t tilt your chair, it’s unsafe.”

Slaine raised an eyebrow and very deliberately leaned further back. “Oh? Why no favorites? Have no stylistic preferences? No favored literary flourishes?”

Inaho’s eyebrows drew together slightly, but he apparently decided to abandon the subject of the chair for the moment. “No. I want information delivered to me clearly and directly.”

“So not really a florid prose type, then?”

“I don’t read fiction.”

Slaine’s chair fell back to four legs with a _bang_. “You don’t?”

“I don’t,” he affirmed. “I can’t see a point to it. In a made-up story, there is no factual knowledge about the world to be gained.”

“Made-up?!” Slaine slammed his palms on the table. “That isn’t the point! You don’t read great literature for _facts_!”

“What other benefit is there, then?”

Slaine let out a snort. “I can’t believe this. Did you not have one single literature class in all your years of school?”

Inaho tilted his head slightly. “It was not required.”

“Not required,” Slaine echoed flatly. “You had no desire to expand your horizons?”

“Not with fiction.”

Slaine shook his head. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Inaho blinked.

Slaine rolled his eyes. “Hamlet, Act one, scene five.”

“I don’t see your point.”

“My point is,” Slaine snapped, “that human experience is not something that can be understood through scientific study alone! The arts explore the aspects of the world that are beyond the pale of science. Fiction is so much more than simply ‘made up.’” His eyes landed on the bag of books. He snatched one, almost at random– thought not quite. Quoting Shakespeare had put him in a mood for it. He flung the weathered-looking copy of _Much Ado About Nothing_ down in front of Inaho. “There. You want me to read? You should read as well. You sure as hell sound like you need it. Who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy it!”

“You want me to read this?” Inaho put a hand delicately on the book, staring down at the cover.

“Yes. Read it, and once you’re done come back here and discuss it. You’ll have to have gleaned _something_ from it.”

“I don’t want to,” Inaho said, looking humorously put out.

“And I don’t want to stare at a concrete wall all day. Life isn’t fair, is it? I’m stuck here as a prisoner for the rest of my life. Can you bear to indulge a dead man’s petty wants?”

Inaho looked up and stared him straight in the eye. His face was solemn.

Slaine shifted uncomfortably and turned his gaze to the floor. “You don’t– have to”–

“Alright.”

Slaine’s head snapped up. “What?”

“I’ll read it. And talk about it with you.”

“O-oh.” He almost said, _“Thank you.”_ But he managed to bite his tongue.

He would not be thanking Kaizuka for anything.

 

_2 March 2018_

 

Inaho shut his eye, rubbing at his temples.

It was well within his predictions that information about the house that had been turned into Slaine’s prison would be difficult to find. But having predicted encountering that difficulty did not ease the strain on his eye, or the quiet throbbing in his head.

Accessing this data was not strictly legal, he knew. It was only available at all because he was clever enough to find it, and no one had thought to hide it through more than simple obscurity.

It had also been in his predictions that they would underestimate his determination in seeking what he was looking for.

He had unearthed some basics. The house was old, sixty to seventy years old, though the exact date of construction was unrecorded. The floor plan was standard for a house of its era. Slaine was being kept in what had been the cellar, and the room that had been repurposed as his cell had once been some kind of laundry area. The presence of plumbing already there had made it the perfect candidate for Slaine’s cell. A ready supply of water helped to keep him both hydrated and clean.

New water sources had been hooked up to the house upon its conversion, and the old plumbing had been replaced. Supposedly, it was a cost-saving move. Piping in processed water from the distant city carried a higher expense than routing from nearer sources.

Even with the rationale, Inaho took note of the fact. It was a drastic change, for something so small as cost efficiency.

“Nao?”

Inaho looked up to see Yuki, leaning against the doorframe. “Come in.”

Yuki smiled. “Thanks.” She came over and settled down on the edge of the bed. “So… how are you holding up?”

“Well.”

“That’s good to hear. Also, er… I liked dinner! I did tell you that before, but never hurts to repeat it does it!” She started to smile, but broke it with a sigh. “Sorry, Nao. I don’t mean to be so awkward about this, but I just don’t know how to say it.”

“Say what? You can say anything to me. I don’t mind.”

She reached over to ruffle his hair. “I know. What I’m trying to say is… I’m worried about you, Nao. You were injured less than a month ago!”

“My wrist is fine”– he attempted to interject, but she rolled on determinedly.

“I know you bounce back. You always do. And I believe you, don’t assume that I’m doing this because I think you aren’t okay and you’re hiding it– but I can’t help but worry. You’re working yourself so hard at all this military stuff, dealing with that Count making a mess up there on Vers. I’m proud of you, but… make sure you don’t push yourself too hard.”

“My work at the UFE is not a burden.” He chose not to mention the extra tasks he had given himself.

“But here you are, staring at that tablet of yours until past midnight.”

“I want to.”

“Oh, believe me, I know better than anyone that you don’t do anything you don’t want to!” she laughed. “But be sure to take care of yourself too! Even the amazing Major Kaizuka needs sleep.”

“Lieutenant Kaizuka needs sleep as well.”

“You’ve got me there! And pulling rank on me too, such a dirty trick for a brother to use on his wonderful older sister!”

He responded, voice very serious, “Breaking rank, Lieutenant?”

She snorted, and then gave in and laughed freely. He smiled with her. She threw her arms around him in a quick hug, then pulled back, hand lingering on his shoulder.

“Whatever you’re doing, I’m sure there’s a good reason for it. Even if I don’t understand it, you always have a reason. I trust you to tell me if I need to know.” She patted his shoulder one last time, then stood and walked out.

He laid back down. His eye caught on the now-dark screen of his tablet.

Water pipes replaced… always have a reason… water source changed… reason for everything… plumbing replaced…

Why had the plumbing been replaced?

That was no cost-saving move. But what else could necessitate that?

It was an old house, built in the fifties, back before–

Before lead pipes had been phased out of use in Europe.

Inaho bolted upright in bed, eye wide.

Somewhere, somehow, the UFE had intentionally left lead piping there. Likely the water source change was to a supply with more corrosive chemical content. Slaine was never allowed to leave that building, never had a chance to escape the exposure like the staff did– if the staff even were being exposed. Wide-scale lead poisoning would be suspicious. And none of the staff showed signs. Somehow, it was being confined to one area. But one way or another…

The lead was in the water.

 

≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Here is chapter 12, at last! Thank you all once again for your patience, likes, comments, and bookmarks! Speaking of bookmarks, BFAS is almost on the first page (when you sort the ao3 tag by bookmarks)! I'm so happy and grateful. I repeat, thank you readers!
> 
> I apologize for the lack of plot (my earlier predictions about being able to finish part 1 in one to two chapters were… overly optimistic) but the boys need to get up to speed so they are where they need to be for the plot to take off again!
> 
> Alas, with that, I must announce a hiatus until November. Why? Because I will be working on a fic for a… secret project. A secret project that may or may not be related to inasure… but you didn't hear it from me ;)
> 
> Title from the song "Which Witch" by Florence and the Machine.


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